Posted on 11/27/2019 10:09:51 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Philippine senators have called for an investigation into the security implications of China’s part ownership of the national energy grid after officials said engineers in Beijing could plunge the entire country into darkness with the flick of a switch.
National Transmission Corporation (TransCo) president Melvin Matibag confirmed there was a “possibility” of such a scenario during deliberations in the Senate on Tuesday over the government budget for 2020.
The State Grid Corporation of China holds a 40 per cent stake in the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), a private consortium which bagged the franchise in 2009 to run the power lines.
Opposition Liberal Party senator Risa Hontiveros first raised questions over the extent of Beijing’s control given the continuing territorial conflict between the two countries in the South China Sea.
She said China “is a part of our daily lives every minute, every hour, every moment as long as the system operation is … controlled and managed by Chinese engineers ... Indeed an enormous power”.
“What if someone in Beijing switches it off?” she asked energy officials during the 10 hours of proceedings in the Senate to approve the budget.
Sherwin Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate committee on energy and is tasked with defending the government budget for the energy department, replied: “I was advised by the president of TransCo that they have studied this type of possibility. I was advised that manual operation of transmission lines is possible. A takeover [by Beijing] can happen, but TransCo, with their technical capability, can then manually take over.”
Gatchalian, a Philippine-born ethnic Chinese, added: “We will invite national security experts and the National Security Council to make sure they have contingency plans.”
However, Senator Miguel Zubiri, an ally of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said the clause would only apply “as long as we are not being invaded”.
“If we are being invaded and they black us out, then that is a problem,” he said.
Power to the grid could only be restored by the Philippine side through manual override within “24 to 48 hours depending on the gravity” of the situation, energy officials said.
Recent media reports have claimed only foreign engineers are able to troubleshoot, operate and control the NGCP’s power transmission network due to its remote monitoring and control system, which is located in China under the Nari Group, based in Nanjing.
Others have reported that instruction manuals are in Chinese and that Filipino engineers are unable to operate the system.
Hontiveros acknowledged these reports and asked TransCo officials to verify whether the remote set-up enabled Beijing to switch off the grid.
Nari Group’s system also supplies remote control systems to power grids in Kenya, Indonesia and Thailand, she said, countries which “may be sources of assurance for us or important cautionary lessons”.
Gatchalian conferred with the energy officials during the Senate session and then told Hontiveros: “I was advised by the TransCo president that it is operated by what they call Scada and can be operated remotely.” Scada stands for supervisory control and data acquisition, a computer system used in various industries for real-time monitoring and control.
Gatchalian added that according to the officials, the Chinese manuals had been translated to English. “I was advised that Filipino engineers are operating the grid,” he said.
But Senator Richard Gordon insisted the matter be further verified. He said that if a sitting senator were to visit NGCP and Philippine executives there barred the lawmaker from entering out of fear of being fired, then the Philippines was not really in control.
The national security concerns were raised as senators awaited word from the Department of National Defence on whether it would allow Chinese-backed Dito Telecommunity Corporation, formerly known as Mislatel – the Philippines’ third and latest telecoms player – to install communication towers in military camps.
Last week, opposition Liberal Party president Francis Pangilinan reiterated in the Senate concerns raised in recent weeks over the possible national security risks incurred in the proposal, which he said would allow China to eavesdrop on the Philippine army.
He revealed that a risk assessment carried out by the Armed Forces of the Philippines had concluded that the current fixed communication system used to link all military camps and bases nationwide was “susceptible to electronic eavesdropping and interception”.
Pangilinan added that eavesdropping equipment was “readily and cheaply available”, which meant the Philippines must take steps to restrict access and secure the network.
However, Senator Panfilo Lacson, a former military officer who chairs the Senate defence committee, said defence and military officials had assured him the government would be able to unilaterally terminate any agreement with Dito at any time.
The defence department nevertheless promised to submit to the Senate before the end of November any memorandum of agreement signed with the firm.
I have been reading a book “The Stealth War” about China’s flimsily hidden war on the West both economic and military, and their quest for influence in the rest of the world, with a large focus on Africa.
But as the Philippines have discovered in the way many third world countries have, those offers to help coming from China have ramifications that are far steeper than nearly any offer from Western countries has ever carried.
China is not our friend.
Sure do.
Heck, we gave the management of our facilities in Long Beach to China IIRC, so not like we are any great shakes at offering advice on this, but I do believe that has been addressed.
That link you provided illustrates why it is such a bad idea.
China will completely control the Philippines through debt trapping. I didn’t realize the situation had gotten so bad so fast. A few years ago the Philippines had a president named Gloria Arroyo. Her husband, the First Gentleman, was nicknamed “Mr Twenty Percent”, the cost of a favor. Marcos may be gone but corruption didn’t leave with him.
So, Arroyo’s husband was to China as
Hunter Biden was to Ukraine?
They probably have the same ability to shut off power in California...not that anyone would notice there.
I’m thinking: “No, it doesn’t work that way.”
Getting a port?
China is doing to other nations what Britain and western powers did to China in the 19th century.
We shouldn’t be fooled by this neo-imperialism.
Wouldn’t China threatening to shut off power be a quid pro quo??? Media better check into that.
I have been told that Chinese nationals work at the control center for Oncor, which controls the Texas power grid.
Sure. I get your point.
But that was then and this is now.
I still maintain that in the 20th century we have been far, FAR more generous with our aid and having fewer of the heavy-handed strings like the kind China attaches to theirs.
We were being naive spendthrifts trying to buy good will in many cases, but...China is playing for keeps.
I’m thinking ERCOT controls the power grid. Oncor is simply a utility.
The Philippines are a young country and will experience a lot of growing pains over time; they share many of the same characteristics of Latin American countries in terms of corruption and instability - possibly a legacy of Spanish rule (they were a colony of Spain much more recently than most Latin American countries). Spain lost Cuba and Puerto Rico and Cuba at the same time, and they have the same problems (even with Cuba’s communist rule).
Geographically it would seem very difficult to administer.
Former European colonies will be shocked at how brutal a non-Western master can be; some European colonizers were horrible while others left them in state where they could have a smoother transition to independence, but Red China will be brutal.
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