They’re probably sitting on warehouses of those things, they spend a ridiculous amount of their GDP on the military. They just want a better deal and the more disastrous the war becomes for Russia the more leverage they have
Aside from those 2 failure modes, they also suffer inconsistent propellant loading. Shells need to be perfectly consistent so you know exactly where they’ll land. NK shells are a crapshoot.
Fears raised over ‘Chinese spy cranes’ in US ports
There are concerns that the machines are effectively Trojan Horses for Beijing and could be used to sabotage sensitive logistics
Unexplained communications equipment has been found in Chinese-made cranes in US ports that could be used for spying and potentially “devastate” the American economy, according to a new congressional investigation.
The finding, first reported by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), will stoke American concerns that the cranes are effectively Trojan Horses for Beijing to gain access to, or even sabotage, sensitive logistics.
The probe by the House Committee on Homeland Security and the House select committee on China found over a dozen pre-installed cellular modems, that can be remotely accessed, in just one port.
Many of the devices did not seem to have a clear function or were not documented in any contract between US ports and crane maker ZPMC, a Chinese state-owned company that accounts for nearly 80 per cent of ship-to-shore cranes in use in America, according to the WSJ.
The modems were found “on more than one occasion” on the ZPMC cranes, a congressional aide said.
“Our committees’ investigation found vulnerabilities in cranes at US ports that could allow the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to not only undercut trade competitors through espionage, but disrupt supply chains and the movement of cargo, devastating our nation’s economy,” Mark Green, the Republican chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, told CNN.
The Chinese government is “looking for every opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and position themselves to exploit vulnerabilities by systematically burrowing into America’s critical infrastructure,” he told the WSJ, adding that the US had overlooked the threat for too long.
The Telegraph has contacted ZPMC for comment.
‘The new Huawei’
A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington DC said claims that Chinese-made cranes pose a security risk are “entirely paranoia.”
The US investigation began last year amid Pentagon fears that sophisticated sensors on large ship-to-shore cranes could register and track containers, offering valuable information to Beijing about the movement of cargo supporting US military operations around the world.
At the time, Bill Evanina, a former top US counterintelligence official, said: “Cranes can be the new Huawei.”
“It’s the perfect combination of legitimate business that can also masquerade as clandestine intelligence collection,” he told the WSJ.
In recent years, a handful of Chinese crane companies have grown into major players in the global automated ports industry, working with Microsoft and other companies to connect equipment and analyse data in real-time.
I work with heavy machinery (primarily tractors and forklifts) there’s no reason to have a modem connected to any of its systems.
Tractors, forklifts, cranes, combines, etc don’t need such connectivity and having such features is a major security and (depending on it’s connectivity) a safety concern.
Hell when our new forklifts arrived they had dash cams pre installed by the factory, the first thing our shop technician did was remove them due to security concerns.
I’d assume so (much like our forklifts) but that system should be fully independent from the control systems. That system should only have WiFi connectivity, set up in such a way it doesn’t call out to (or gets exposed to) the Internet as a whole, and that system should be fully documented for the IT staff, there should be zero unknowns.
Not to mention the level of logging on those systems for proper info sec should be quite extensive.
Not exactly the same thing, but Jon Deere does put modems on all of their tractors so farmers can track where they planted what and where they applied what herbicides/fungicides/etc. It’s largely driven by having data driven agronomy and farming, but the general idea could easily apply to logistical applications.
The real problem is why did no one know that it was being done.
China is threatening US global dominance and the US is freaked out and very motivated to cast suspicion on anything Chinese. Remember that “spy balloon” that turned out to be a nothing burger? I wouldn’t pay attention to anything so insubstantial as “fears raised”. That’s all they’re doing - raising fear.
Believe it or not, sometimes real people actually disagree with you. It must be difficult to imagine independent thoughts that don’t align with the narrative you follow, but they exist.
Believe it or not, there is no “both sides” when it comes to Chinese spy programs. They do it. They don’t want it done to them. Their economy is collapsing. Their social manipulation teams are required to remain in denial while their country falls apart at the seams. They are not allowed to have independent thoughts.
China is threatening US global dominance and the US is freaked out
The US is “freaking out” because everywhere we look we find yet another Chinese back door that wasn’t known about and isn’t necessary. These things represent a fucking enormous security risk, especially when they are embedded in critical infrastructure…and yes cargo handing cranes are critical infrastructure.
I wouldn’t pay attention to anything so insubstantial as “fears raised”.
The US was all too happy to ship manufacturing over to China when US corporations could exploit cheap Chinese labor for juicy profit margins, but now that China is making their own things, suddenly China is a major threat. You’re exactly right, but you’ll be downvoted and criticized by people sucking down western propaganda while labeling you a shill, funnily enough.
If the US “quits” Nato (they won’t), then Nato is done.
Specifically Article 13:
After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.
Even if Trump becomes president, he isn’t going to withdraw from Nato, he both can’t* unilaterally, and also doesn’t actually want to. So I’m not really sure what the point of this article is except fear mongering for the benefit of the European MIC.
*National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 forbids the president from unilaterally withdrawing from nato. Now that may be unconstitutional (and I would say that act is unconstitutional, but lol that has never mattered for the Military.)
US very clearly sees China as its mains competitor, and it will be all too happy to leave Europe holding the bag with the Ukraine debacle. The fact that Nuland just got dismissed and replaced with a China hawk is a pretty clear sign of things to come. Europe is entirely dependent on US both militarily and economically now, and if US quit NATO then Europe would still be just as dependent on US as before. Military industry will keep selling weapons to Europe, but there won’t be any more obligations on the part of US allowing the neocons to focus on trying to provoke a war with China.
Is there a source without links to the regime in the UK? The UK is considered a ‘systemic rival’ to the EU by the EU, so any claims by UK state-affiliated media should be viewed through a lens of foreign propaganda.
Hungary’s interior ministry claimed the deal would improve safety in tourist hotspots or during events that attract large numbers of spectators
Okay so reading between the lines, it’s about tourist services and has no impact on 99.9% of the country?
But the plan has drawn criticism from those concerned the agreement will be abused by communist China,
Who are these people?
which has a lengthy record of human rights abuses.
Which abuses?
The patrols could be the first step to establishing secret police stations or used to intimidate the overseas Chinese community, they warned.
Based on what? Who warned? Who are they?
Daniel Freund: Orban is showing his true colours: deep red. There’s nothing to learn from a communist dictatorship except for tyranny and totalitarian control of citizens.
Viktor Orban is a communist actually, says their expert. For more insight into the overwhelming intellect of their expert, I present to you his pinned tweet. nitter.poast.org/…/1766097991180382216#m
Note this expert is not the ‘they’ from earlier.
There are also deep-seated EU anxieties about Beijing’s use of surveillance and its human rights record with the Uighurs.
From who? Your readers certainly, but anyone who follows world affairs knows that their ‘human rights record with the Uighurs’ is completely clean. Since they can’t publish that conspiracy theory any more, now they just hope you infer it.
By Western standards, China’s record on human rights with respect to Uyghurs is not clean. However, it’s no more dirty than China’s record on human rights with respect to Han.
Turns out, Western standards look down on things like collectivism and the common good in favour of individual rights and privileges.
Western criticism of the one child policy, for example, is the exact same thing as Western criticism of government-imposed family planning on Uyghurs: by Western standards, the government should only impose family planning policy through economic levels, never legally enforceable ones.
Another example of right wing governments being actual cucks.
Letting another countries officers patrol your land? You bet Orbans gonna be listening in with headphone from his office while jerking himself and crying.
TBH every Israeli sports club comes with armed mossad agents. So it's not something new, perhaps just more public. Also I have no idea about reasoning why they need Chinese policeman, most probably government being paid it something like that. Also that's going on since 2017 in Serbia as well.
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