China has been slowly but surely heating up their cold war against America. But it’s already worse than you could imagine.
Because China sent this startling Trojan Horse to the shores of the U.S.
The Chinese spy balloons have been a major talking point over the past several weeks, and Americans still don’t have all the answers they deserve.
Joe Biden and his White House tried to spin the Chinese spy balloons fiasco in their favor by saying that the Trump administration “missed” previous spy tech that was flown during his tenure in the White House and by arguing that it’s a “good thing” they found the spy balloons when they did.
However, the truth is that Donald Trump wasn’t briefed by intel agents from the Pentagon on the supposedly “missed” Chinese spy tech.
And a former CIA official also said that the Chinese spy balloons might have given China more intel on America’s defenses than they were previously able to get from their satellites.
But the spy balloons were just the beginning of Chinese infiltration of American borders. Now our shipping ports are vulnerable.
According to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report, an estimated 80% of America’s ship-to-shore cranes being used at America’s ports are made by a company called ZPMC.
ZPMC is a Chinese manufacturer and this has the Pentagon worried sick about whether the Chinese have plans to use these cranes as a Trojan horse against the U.S.
Normal cranes that don’t have any “smart” functionality aren’t a concern, of course, because they can’t be taken over by a simple internet connection.
But according to the Wall Street Journal, ZPMC has been working with Microsoft to bring their cranes up to speed to become “smart” and be able to be operated remotely from anywhere in the world with an internet connection.
That includes controlling such cranes from China.
Furthermore, the cranes could be used to track data on shipping logistics that the cranes are being used for.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
While comparably well-made and inexpensive, they contain sophisticated sensors that can register and track the provenance and destination of containers, prompting concerns that China could capture information about materiel being shipped in or out of the country to support U.S. military operations around the world.In a 2017 video, ZPMC said they were no longer selling just "equipment" but were now selling "systems" that are designed to be controlled and operated as one unit, rather than individually. The ZPMC President at the time of the video said that they could "monitor all the cranes" that were a part of these "systems" from their offices in Shanghai, China. It's unclear how many of these cranes that are monitorable by the company based in China are currently in use in the United States, but it's a major concern nonetheless. Even more worrisome is that ZPMC has direct ties to the Chinese communist leader, Xi Jinping as ZPMC is reportedly a "subsidiary of China Communications Construction Co., a leading contractor for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative to develop infrastructure and trade links across Asia, Africa and beyond." The Wall Street Journal also noted that a cybersecurity manager at a part in Houston, Texas said that it "wouldn't be hard" for a cyberattacker to take over control of these smart cranes because they "aren't designed for security." Since ZPMC controls a commanding 80% market share lead in cranes used in America today, there's no easy, short-term solution here to get away from the reliance on a company that has direct ties to Chinese communists. But the White House can - and should - dedicate significant cybersecurity efforts towards these cranes to ensure that foreign enemies can't cripple our operations with a flip of a switch, figuratively speaking. Will Joe Biden do that? That's the question.... and the answer is probably not. Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
