Why Cargo ships are disappearing from Chinese waters ?
Several cargo ships have mysteriously gone missing as they reached Chinese waters.
Some issues are arriving in International Trade and Shipping since 1st November 2021 and the issue is Cargo ships and tankers are failing track with the company as soon as they enter Chinese waters. But when the ship leaves the Chinese water, it gets traced. Some estimates states that there is 90% decline in Ship Tracking around China.
Reason why Cargo ships are disappearing:
- China has legislated a new law for data privacy. Beijing is planning to separate herself from the whole world. China feels that foreign organisations are obtaining important military and economic intelligence through maritime tracking.
China’s New Law :
China legislated the Personal Information and Protection Law on 1 November 2021. This law has expanded government control on Chinese data collection and export by domestic and foreign organisations. Some information has come that some suspicious equipment has been found in Zhanjiang City which shows that China is getting reserve for information flow.
Generally, maritime vessels are tracked by Automatic Identification System. The AIS tracks the pattern with the assistance of trans receivers present on the ship. Basically the AIS plays a vital role especially when ships are in busy lanes. The International Maritime organisation has made AIS mandatory for vessels of 300 tonnage or more.
The maritime data firms at the Chinese coastline are assisting spy institutions to load Chinese information.
PIPL :
Under PIPL to export any personal data, permission from Chinese authorities will be necessary. Any foreign company violating the PIPL will be blacklisted and this will escalate global conflicts. Global shipping industries depend on AIS data. China is significant because it has 6 out of 10 world’s busiest container ports. As festive season is arriving, this blocking of information sharing of the ships will harshly influence the shipping sector and global supply chain.
Already overwhelmed global supply chain will suffer further because of the shortage of accurate data from China. For safety purposes China can take some security measures rather blocking the data sharing all together.
