Shannon Brandao
Shannon's excerpt from the article: "'😏 Best Christmas present ever. 🎄🎁'
🎯 VOA News [excerpt]: The U.S. Congress has passed #legislation that would ban the #Pentagon from using any seaport in the world that relies on a Chinese #logistics platform known as #LOGINK.
LOGINK, by tracking cargo and ship movements, lets Beijing monitor America's #military #supplychain, which relies on commercial ports, according to sponsors Senator Tom Cotton and Representative Michelle Steel.
Their amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (#NDAA) for fiscal 2024 also bans federal funding of any port that uses LOGINK. The spending bill passed December 14 and the LOGINK ban goes into effect six months after the bill is signed. President Joe Biden has not yet signed the NDAA.
Steel, in an email interview with VOA, called LOGINK's threat 'very serious' because it operates under the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing already has investments in about 100 ports in more than 60 nations.
The U.S.-#China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which monitors the national security implications of U.S.-China trade, said in a September 2022 report, 'LOGINK's visibility into global shipping and supply chains could also enable the Chinese government to identify U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities and to track shipments of U.S. military cargo on commercial freight.'
...LOGINK partners with more than 20 #ports worldwide, including six in #Japan, five in #SouthKorea and one in #Malaysia. There are also at least nine across #Europe and three in the #MiddleEast. There are no LOGINK port contracts in the U.S., according to the commission's report, which says Beijing subsidizes the free platform.
...Under the NDAA, Congress must commission a study of how foreign influence at the 15 largest American container ports 'could affect' U.S. national and economic security.
"Major step" by Congress
Michael Wessel, an original member of the USCC who helped write the report, now heads a consulting firm, the Wessel Group. He told VOA the legislation is 'a major step taken by Congress to begin to address the challenge of the threat posed by LOGINK.'
Wessel and others say an alternative to LOGINK needs to be developed.
Gabe Collins, a fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy and a former Department of Defense China analyst, told VOA he's not seen an alternative to LOGLINK 'that can operate at that scale.'
Collins estimates that LOGINK collects #data on as much as half of all global #shipping capacity — through contracts with ports and data sharing agreements with existing logistics networks.
He said the U.S. ban sends a 'demand signal' telling the marketplace it must invent an alternative to LOGINK, though he said it could take as long as five years to develop one.
Washington's new ban also requires the secretary of state to begin negotiations with allies and partners to remove LOGINK from their ports. #Compliance must begin in six months."
#news #geopolitics #business