Steel, 27 Republicans call on Biden to stop spread of China’s logistics platform

U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA) helped lead more than two dozen of her GOP colleagues in urging President Joe Biden to halt the spread of LOGINK, a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-controlled digital platform for maritime data-sharing.

“Widespread adoption of the LOGINK platform creates a strategic risk for U.S. commercial and military interests,” according to a Nov. 30 letter Rep. Steel and the 27 other Republicans sent to the president.

The LOGINK logistics platform — which first spread outside of China in 2010 and is subsidized and promoted by the Chinese Ministry of Transport — has the potential to collect massive amounts of sensitive business and foreign government data, such as corporate registries and vessel and cargo data, according to their bicameral letter. 

The platform is currently used by more than 20 global ports, most notably in South Korea and Japan, the hubs of the U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific. LOGINK is also spreading to Europe and now includes ports in Spain and Portugal, wrote Rep. Steel and the lawmakers, who included U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and U.S. Reps. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA).

Their letter details how the CCP could use the LOGINK-collected data to increase its insight and influence over international maritime trade, port infrastructure, and possibly even U.S. military activities. 

“The CCP could exploit their control over LOGINK to identify early trends in the movement of U.S. military supplies and equipment through commercial ports while denying other countries the same data on Chinese military assets,” the lawmakers wrote. “The CCP could gain valuable intelligence regarding U.S. supply chains and use this knowledge to imperil our supply of critical resources.”

“The CCP can also capitalize on LOGINK data to confer commercial advantages to Chinese firms and skew the marketplace away from U.S. firms,” they added.

Rep. Steel and her colleagues also asked Biden to answer several questions by Jan. 11, 2023, including whether his administration agrees that the CCP’s access to sensitive U.S. government and military shipping data poses a threat to national security, and if any U.S. platforms or platforms from ally or partner nations have been identified that could serve as secure alternatives to LOGINK.