Buy American and Hire American<\/a>\u201d executive order.<\/p>\nOlson noted the first train cars going to Boston under the deal were shrink wrapped and shipped whole from China.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what they\u2019ve done. They\u2019ve also built a new freight car company called Vertex in North Carolina, and this facility is with a U.S. partner,\u201d he said. Olson noted that Vertex gets funding from China, and \u201cTheir stated goal is to bring in freight cars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw all this happening and got concerned because we don\u2019t want to see America be like in Australia and other countries where CRRC dominates,\u201d he said. \u201cIf CRRC took over and decimated our U.S. rail base, they could charge whatever they want because they\u2019d be the sole provider.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spying and Security Threats<\/h2>\n
In addition to the CCP\u2019s growing influence over the business side of railways, there are also issues that could affect U.S. national security.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s trains are fitted with closed circuit cameras, have internal WiFi, and,\u00a0 according to Olson, the technologies in the Chinese-made rail cars are from some of the same companies currently being accused of spying for the CCP.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmartcars are really smart vehicles,\u201d Olson said. \u201cThey have tons of sensors on them. They\u2019re e-cars, essentially.\u201d<\/p>\n
User data could be at risk from the Chinese companies having access to internet traffic on the networks, and data collected by the sensors could feed back to the Chinese regime as well.<\/p>\n
According to Olson, however, the bigger security threat is to the U.S. military, which still relies heavily on the U.S. rail system for transport. Trains run through every major city and through every major military base, he said, and trains are also used to transfer sensitive materials for the U.S. military.<\/p>\n
If a war were to break out, the Department of Defense has about 200 freight cars of its own, but would still heavily rely on the public systems. Olson said if all these trains were built and managed by the CCP, \u201ccould you trust them?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re worried about if the Chinese controlled that whole system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But the advocacy work of the Rail Security Alliance has identified many U.S. leaders in the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security who understand the threat.<\/p>\n
Outside of the defense community, however, the Rail Security Alliance is still fighting an uphill battle to inform U.S. leaders. Yet, they have seen quite a bit of progress recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen in the last six months, I think, people turn to our side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
An issue is that when people think of trains, they still think of freight rails. Olson said today\u2019s trains are \u201chighly capable, technical vehicles\u201d often fitted with more than 200 sensors on parts including wheels, open vents, temperature control, and others.<\/p>\n
The threats also tie into the CCP\u2019s interests in critical infrastructure\u2014technologies and services necessary to keep a country working, such as transportation, financial systems, power grids, and others. For the CCP, it is looking to build technologies and products for critical infrastructure; and also makes the disruption of critical infrastructure a key goal in wartime planning.<\/p>\n
The CCP also uses infrastructure programs as a pseudo-economic Trojan horse into foreign countries. In countries throughout Africa, Latin America, and Asia, the CCP will often build infrastructure while keeping the jobs and management under its own control.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how they\u2019re breaking into the critical infrastructure space,\u201d Olson said. \u201cThey have money to spend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more at The Epoch Times<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is taking steps to control the U.S. rail industry, leveraging state funding to undercut competitors, force private companies out of business, and then dominate the market. The issue doesn\u2019t end with the debate about the free market or foreign actions that disrupt private competition in business. Control of the U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[14],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackopspartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}