LOGINK is a unified digital logistics and trade platform administered by China’s Ministry of Transport. Initially developed in 2007 as a provincial initiative, it expanded regionally in 2010. Four years later, it became a global platform. Today, China continues to encourage entities like ports, freight carriers, and others to adopt LOGINK by providing it for free. The platform aggregates data from over 450,000 users in China, five million trucks, over 200 logistics warehouses worldwide, and dozens of ports in China and abroad, in addition to several other databases. With all this data, the platform “provides users with a one-stop shop for logistics data management and shipment tracking.” Due to the newness of logistics management platforms, China’s effort to obtain a first-mover advantage is significant. It could allow China to set the rules of the game.
Meanwhile, LOGINK has agreements with at least 24 ports, freeports, and port operators outside of China. Of these, nine ports are located in Europe. None are located in the U.S. Paying attention only to LOGINK’s direct agreements with foreign ports, however, does not tell the whole story. It is also necessary to look at its rapidly growing repertoire of partnerships across the world. For example, LOGINK has a data-sharing arrangement with CargoSmart, a shipping management software provider, which is in turn owned by COSCO through its subsidiary Orient Overseas International Limited (OOIL). According to Chinese news sources, this partnership provided LOGINK with “access to data on live movements of more than 90 percent of the world’s container ships through CargoSmart.” A second partnership with CaiNiao, a global logistics giant with over 200 warehouses globally and a rapidly expanding European presence, has also given LOGINK an edge. Other relevant partnerships exist with Portbase in the Netherlands and Maqta in the UAE.
More secure and resilient supply chains are essential for our national security, our economic security, and our technological leadership. National security experts, including the Department of Defense, have consistently argued that the nation’s underlying commercial industrial foundations are central to our security. Reports from both Republican and Democratic administrations have raised concerns about the defense industry’s reliance on limited domestic suppliers; a global supply chain vulnerable to disruption; and competitor country suppliers. Innovations essential to military preparedness—like highly specialized lithium-ion batteries—require an ecosystem of innovation, skills, and production facilities that the United States currently lacks. The disappearance of domestic production of essential antibiotics impairs our ability to counter threats ranging from pandemics to bio-terrorism, as emphasized by the FDA’s analysis of supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients. Our economic security—steady employment and smooth operations of critical industries—also requires secure and resilient supply chains. For more than a decade, the Department of Defense has consistently found that essential civilian industries would bear the preponderance of harm from a disruption of strategic and critical materials supply. The Department of Energy notes that, today, China refines 60 percent of the world’s lithium and 80 percent of the world’s cobalt, two core inputs to high-capacity batteries—which presents a critical vulnerability to the future of the U.S. domestic auto ind
Article: Is Europe failing on import diversification? https://www.bruegel.org/blog-post/europe-failing-import-diversification
In the discussion on European Union strategic sovereignty – the idea that the EU should not be dependent on other economies – there are broadly two approaches. The first is that a certain degree of self-sufficiency (autarky) is needed, at least in ‘strategic’ industries. The second is that strategic sovereignty can be achieved by ensuring that strategically important imports from one country can be substituted by imports from another – in other words, through sufficient import diversification. But to what extent are Europe’s imports already diversified, and how has diversification developed over time?