Commentary
China stole a march on the United States by getting a major information technology system to market while we were dozing. The technology, called LOGINK, reportedly tracks 90 percent of the world’s container ships in real time, including granular details about thousands of containers per ship and packages per container.
Beijing provides the technology free of charge to ports and shippers globally. The cost is the confidentiality of shipping, price, customs, and even military information lost to Beijing, which almost certainly hacks it through LOGINK backdoors and without notifying users.
Beginning in 2007 as a Chinese provincial initiative, LOGINK grew to a regional network with Japan and South Korea in 2010 and globally after 2014, according to a Sept. 20 U.S. congressional report. “The state-sponsored and -supported platform has now expanded to partner with over 20 ports worldwide as well as numerous Chinese and international companies.”…