Schumer fears Chinese company’s work for MTA may threaten national security
Schumer fears Chinese company’s work for MTA may threaten national security
By Mark Moore, New York Post, May 19, 2019
Getty Images
Sen. Chuck Schumer is calling on the Commerce Department to investigate whether a Chinese state-owned company’s proposal to design new subway cars for the MTA could pose a threat to national security.
The New York Democrat raised the concerns Sunday as Washington and Beijing are locked in a tariff war over billions of dollars in goods and after the Trump administration filed criminal charges last week against Huawei, a Chinese firm, for stealing US technology.
“Given what we know about how cyberwarfare works, and recent attacks that have hit transportation and infrastructure hubs across the country, the Department of Commerce must give the green light and thoroughly check any proposals or work China’s CRRC does on behalf of the New York subway system, including our signals, Wi-Fi and more,” said Schumer said in a statement.
CRRC – China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. – the largest train car producer in the world, won an MTA Genius Transit Challenge in March 2018 and proposed investing $50 million of its own money to develop a new subway car using lighter materials and “modern train control technology.”
Schumer said the company, which doesn’t have a contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, wants to install new technology in the subway system as part of its plan.
He wants the federal government to determine whether that would pose a national security threat to the transportation agency and straphangers.
The MTA said there are no CRRC cars in the system and it hasn’t bought any products from the company.
“The MTA has robust, multilayered and vigorously enforced safety and security standards, but we support efforts of government agencies to bolster that work,” MTA Chief External Affairs Office Max Young said in a statement.
CRRC also does business with transportation systems in Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, Schumer said, and underbids other competitors because it receives heavy subsidies from the Chinese government.
It is also pursuing a $500 million contract for train cars with Washington’s Metro system and is eyeing a $4 billion contact with the MTA.
“This kind of national security responsibility is just so big, and so complex, that the MTA and other big-city transit systems should not have to foot the burden of going it alone to assess whether or not CRRC’s low bids for work, and current contracts across the country, are part of some larger strategy,” Schumer said. “We just cannot be too careful here, especially now, amidst these tensions.”
Tags
Who is online
85 visitors
Schumer is so smart. He figured it out. China will design trains with eyes and ears to see and hear everything and send it all back to China. SPY TRAINS!!!!
Before you mock...………...US has been installing spyware in some of the weapons we make available in the World. This is true. Remember when the Israelis completely disassembled every fighter, fighter bomber and attachments during the Clinton and GWBush Administrations? They were looking for spyware---and they found it.
I'm of the opinion that every country that is capable of doing so spies on every other country to which it has any access, even by means of satellites. That includes the USA and nobody has the right to criticize any other country when they do the same thing themselves.
Gee, Buzz, when you put it like THAT...………….it just sounds......well...…………………………...SANE!
I agree 100% about people crying over the same stuff almost all major powers do. To think otherwise is the height of naivety.
Do you remember anyone crying about when we bugged Merkel's phone, or recorded her conversations?
American trains and subways should be built in the USA only. I like trains and we should build our own
Honestly! You mean we can't build our own stuff?
I got a better idea. Lets build the stuff and sell it to whoever needs it. This is a no brainer.
C'mon Schumer, quit being so stupid.
I've been on subway trains in cities like Toronto, Montreal, New York City, London England and in a few cities in China including where I live now. It is impossible to fall on or be pushed onto the tracks here which differs from everywhere else I've been.
Before China stopped building steam locomotives, a few were brought to the US for tourist railroads. Today one of them pulled an excursion train in Ohio
I took this photo of an actual Chinese steam locomotive - it's a diorama in the Three Gorges Dam Museum in Chongqing.
Before I left Canada for China, my daughter gave me a book written by a western tourist travelling by rail on a steam-driven train around China not long after the Communist revolution - he was accompanied by a kind of Chinese policeman. His stories of his experiences were fascinating. I wish I still had that book to reread it. I must have given it away.
I don't know if this will open for you but here is a picture of 2 Chinese steam locomotives a few years ago pulling a freight as a demonstration shortly after they arrived in US. I can't post the picture of today's train because it is on a paid site
Thanks, Charger. I was able to see all 8 pictures.