Senior Tory urges government probe into Chinese port cranes amid national security fears

The government has been urged to investigate a set of Chinese-made cranes at ports across Britain due to a perceived national security risk.

The concerns have been raised by a former minister and leading voice on China after the US government announced plans to replace almost 80 per cent of its ship-to-shore cranes.

A major British port operating company has denied that Chinese software operates at its locations, stressing that it only purchases the cranes.

Washington is set to invest billions to replace cranes manufactured by Shanghai firm ZPMC amid concerns that the cranes could track information or be deliberately shut down during a conflict.

Concerns have now been raised in Britain after GB News noted that several of Britain’s major ports operate cranes manufactured by ZPMC.

An informed source told GB News that all of the cranes at the London Gateway and Liverpool2 container terminals are manufactured by ZPMC.

In 2018, Felixstowe, Britain’s largest container port, announced the arrival of two ZPMC cranes: “The two new cranes, the 32nd, and 33rd at the country’s largest container port were delivered on the Zhen Hua 23 from Shanghai-listed equipment manufacturer Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co Ltd (ZPMC).”

GB News understands that a significant number of cranes at Felixstowe are manufactured by ZPMC, which have been operating there for many years beyond 2018.

Tory MP Neil O’Brien, founder of the influential China Research Group, told GB News: “There needs to be particular care with anything that acts as an information node, that’s why we had a fuss over Huawei, because of the vital information that passes through those products.

“The same concern should be raised here. In the past we had a more naive approach, and we need to ensure that Britain does not lose track of the latest technological updates and any corresponding risks.”

Mr O’Brien’s concern about so-called “Trojan Horse” cranes comes amid a sharp recalculation of Britain’s relationship with China.

David Cameron’s “golden era” of relations with Beijing have soured significantly under subsequent prime ministers, with Britain in 2020 setting a deadline banning Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from the country’s 5G network by 2027.

Announcing the decision to remove and replace ZPMC cranes in the US, Anne Neuberger, deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology said: “We felt there was real strategic risk here.”

She added: “These cranes, because they are essentially moving the large-scale containers in and out of port, if they were encrypted in a criminal attack, or rented or operated by an adversary, that could have real impact on our economy’s movement of goods and our military’s movement of goods through ports.”

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President Joe Biden’s administration said that the measures are part of more than $20billion that would be invested in port security over the next five years, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

The new cranes are expected to be built by an American subsidiary of Japanese firm Mitsui.

Some port China-made port cranes have been flagged as “surveillance threats” by the US military, a Wall Street Journal investigation found last year.

The investigation revealed that Pentagon officials had called ZPMC a “Trojan horse” for Beijing.

It also alleged that the FBI had discovered intelligence collection devices on ZPMC cranes at the Port of Baltimore.

Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost, the commander of US Transportation Command, told the Journal that the military deliberately avoids ZPMC cranes when transporting military goods.

Concerns were raised in that investigation that the crane software could be exploited by China to disrupt American shipping.

ZPMC is a subsidiary of China Communications Construction Group, which has been designated as a military entity by the US Department of Defense.

Sam Hogg, author of the Beijing to Britain briefing, told GB News: “We need to see if Britain has been given the evidence that the US has collected, what its own assessment is, and what recommendations it might have for private sector companies, especially the ports.

“These companies need some direction. If you speak to businesses in this space, they generally want clearly defined red lines on security risks with China.”

Dr Herbert Lin, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, California, said: “Surveillance of cargo containers does present some degree of threat to UK security interests, but much of that information on containers is available through other means.

“A bigger threat by far is whether the cranes will continue to operate in the event of a conflict or dispute with China.

“Nothing would prevent the Chinese installation of software to disable or disrupt the physical operations of the cranes at a time of their choosing.

“That could have much more serious consequences for a nation that is so dependent on maritime shipping.”

Spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington Liu Pengyu said the American plan to replace all of the cranes was “entirely paranoia.”

In a statement posted on social media, he said: “The relevant claim that ‘Chinese-made cranes pose a security risk to the US’ is entirely paranoia. We firmly oppose the US overstretching the concept of national security and abusing national power to obstruct normal economic and trade cooperation with China.”

A spokesperson for Peel Ports Group said: “Our cranes are installed with European software and systems across all of our sites, including those at our Liverpool2 Terminal. We do not utilise any Chinese crane software and ZPMC is the hardware manufacturer only, providing the steel framework of the crane. We treat matters of national security, including cyber security, extremely seriously.”

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

ZPMC did not respond to a request for comment.

Felixstowe, Southampton, London Gateway ports offered no comment when contacted.