Op Ed: Securing America’s Industrial Nerve Centers Starts With Knowing Who Owns the Equipment

By: Steve Lott

America’s critical infrastructure can be disrupted without a missile, a bomb, or a hostile fleet. All it takes is access — access to the hardware, the software, and the data streams that run our pipelines, ports, and industrial facilities.

I learned this long before I ever ran for office. In the oil and gas industry, I worked directly with dynamic matrix control (DMC) systems and distributed control systems (DCS) — the digital brains that keep refineries stable, pipelines flowing, and chemical plants safe. These systems are powerful and precise, but they are also vulnerable. The same algorithms that optimize a distillation column can be manipulated to destabilize it. The same remote‑access pathway that lets an engineer troubleshoot a compressor can be used to shut it down.

We saw the consequences of that vulnerability during the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021. No physical damage occurred, yet a single breach forced the shutdown of the largest refined‑products pipeline in the United States. Fuel markets across the Southeast were disrupted, and the incident directly affected the work I was responsible for at the time. It was a clear demonstration that operational control is national security.

Today, that control is increasingly shaped by who owns the equipment.

Ownership Has Become an Attack Surface

Chinese firms — including state‑linked or state‑influenced entities — have spent years acquiring Western industrial companies in robotics, automation, maritime manufacturing, and energy‑adjacent sectors. These acquisitions are real, documented transactions:

• Midea, a major Chinese appliance and industrial firm, acquired German robotics manufacturer KUKA in 2016, giving it ownership of a company central to advanced automation.
• Weichai Group, a Chinese state‑owned enterprise, acquired a controlling stake in Italy’s Ferretti Group, a major commercial vessel builder whose products operate throughout the Gulf of America.
• ZPMC cranes, including those used at the Port of Gulfport, have been examined in congressional hearings and federal assessments for potential cybersecurity and remote‑access risks.
• DJI drones held a dominant share of the U.S. commercial drone market for years, prompting federal restrictions due to concerns about data security and foreign access.

None of these companies appear on the Department of War’s Section 1260H list, which identifies Chinese military companies operating in American markets. That’s because 1260H was designed to identify Chinese manufacturers, not Western companies acquired by Chinese entities.

This is the policy gap: when a Chinese state‑linked entity buys a Western company, the subsidiary’s products and data flows fall under an ownership structure governed by Chinese law — even if the company itself is not Chinese.

And under China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law, organizations and citizens are required to “support, assist, and cooperate” with state intelligence work. That requirement does not prove misuse, but it creates a credible, legally grounded risk that data or remote‑access capabilities could be compelled for state purposes.

Washington Has Tools

The solution is not alarmism. It is modernization.

The Department of War should conduct a comprehensive review of the 1260H list, evaluating:

• Western subsidiaries now under Chinese state‑linked ownership
• Industrial automation, robotics, maritime, and energy‑adjacent firms whose products interface with SCADA, DCS, or DMC systems
• Companies whose hardware or software could provide remote‑access pathways into critical infrastructure

DoW should also establish a faster update process so that when a Chinese state‑linked entity acquires a Western company, the subsidiary is reviewed and added to the list when appropriate — without years of delay.

This is not about restricting legitimate commerce. It is about ensuring that the equipment controlling America’s pipelines, ports, and industrial facilities is not quietly subject to foreign intelligence law.

Mississippi Has a Stake — and a Role

Mississippi’s economy depends on secure infrastructure: ports, pipelines, chemical facilities, agriculture, and manufacturing. Our state leaders and congressional delegation should press the Pentagon to complete this review now — not after the next headline.

We can protect our supply chains, strengthen our industrial base, and safeguard the systems that keep our economy running. But we must start with the most basic question in operational security:

Who controls the equipment?

If we don’t know the answer, we don’t control the risk.