Thiruvananthapuram: The Chinese cargo vessel 'Zhen Hua 15', now waiting in the outer seas off the coast of Vizhinjam, will be tugged to the port berth on October 14, making it the first ship to be berthed at the Vizhinjam International Seaport Thiruvananthapuram (VIST). On October 15, a grand reception will be accorded to 'Zhen Hua 15'.
'Zhen Hua 15' is owned by Shanghai Zhen Hua Heavy Industries Company Limited (ZPMC), a Chinese state-owned multinational engineering company. The ship's cargo: one giant rail-mounted quay crane -- the ship-to-shore crane that loads and unloads containers from the ship to the shore and vice versa -- and two rail-mounted gantry cranes that stack containers in the port yard.
Adani Ports has placed orders for eight ship-to-shore cranes and 24-yard cranes. The remaining cranes will arrive in the coming months.
The United States of America is suspicious of these cranes. Early this March, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a report suggesting that these ZPMC cranes could be spies in a machine's garb. "Spying tool hidden in plain sight," is how the WSJ report put it.
A Pentagon source even likened these cranes to a "Trojan horse". The report said that these cranes "contain sophisticated sensors that can register and track the provenance and destination of containers." This triggered fears in the US that China is capturing information about the material being shipped in or out of the country, especially to support US military operations. In the US, the ZPMC controls more than 70 per cent of the container crane market.
What can worry India is this. The WSJ report mentions the possibility that the sensitive data collected by these cranes could be used to throw a country's trade into total disorder.
The report had quoted a US counterintelligence official as saying that "the cranes could also provide remote access for someone looking to disrupt the flow of goods."
Like in the US, the ZPMC cranes are becoming common in India. The Adani-operated Mundra Port in Gujarat also sources its cranes from ZPMC. In fact, 'Zhen Hua 15' had unloaded two ship-to-shore cranes at Mundra on its way to Vizhinjam.
Ship-to-shore cranes are essential because most cargo ships do not have onboard cranes to do the loading and unloading.
The ZPMC's near monopoly can be attributed to quality and the competitive prices it offers. A Vizhinjam port official also said that the ZPMC offered the best price. "It is a state-owned company and is under no pressure to make profits," the official said.
A top source in the shipping industry told Onmanorama why the fears of data misuse were reasonable. "Like any state-of-the-art machinery we have now, these cranes too are highly automated and are controlled by cutting-edge software. The backend of these automated machines stores a mine of data, especially of the kind of cargo in containers and their destinations," the source said.
"Such information is crucial in a highly competitive world. Since the Vizhinjam port is along the global shipping route, the information becomes all the more valuable as it is related to the movement of cargo from all parts of the world," he added.
Crucially, the software used in these automated cranes is also created by China.
It was not the WSJ report that alerted America to the threat. In September 2021, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted a flash raid on a Chinese vessel that was carrying ZPMC cranes to the port of Baltimore. The Chinese ship (Zhen Hua 24) was waiting in the Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Baltimore, just the way ‘Zhen Hua 15’ is now anchored off the Vizhinjam coast, when the FBI sleuths stormed in. It has still not been specified why the FBI did this.
Nonetheless, barely four months later in January 2021, the US representative for Florida Carlos Antonio Giménez introduced the Port Crane Security and Inspection Act of 2022 in the House of Representatives.
The Bill sought to ban port cranes purchased from countries considered an adversary of the US. This included China, the world’s largest manufacturer of ship-to-shore cranes. On top of this, the Bill said that the software used, if created in these blacklisted countries, should be removed from such cranes already in use in the US.
As for cranes already contracted from China, the legislation stated that these should be inspected by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) for "potential security vulnerabilities" before they were put to use. The Bill specifically targeted the ZPMC as it had by then colonised 70 per cent of the American crane market.
Considering the huge logistical issues it could create if most of the ports were to stop using ZPMC cranes, the legislation has been put on hold. Near monopoly came to the ZPMC's aid.
China's foreign ministry had dismissed the WSJ's 'spy crane' charge as "overly paranoid".
