The Guardian view on supply chains: not only just in time, but just in case | Editorial

Countries are placing a higher priority on resilience and security in the wake of the pandemic and as tensions grow

In 2012, shortly before becoming China's top leader, Xi Jinping visited the Port of Los Angeles to discuss boosting trade. What then looked like a locus of cooperation has now become another site for suspicion as Sino-American relations remain tense. Last month, the Biden administration announced $20bn of funding for port infrastructure, much of it to replace cargo cranes that have almost all been made by a state-owned Chinese firm. The US is concerned because the sophisticated pieces of equipment manage information about containers and their contents, their origins and their destinations - and can be remotely programmed and controlled. It wants to restart domestic production of the cranes, which have not been made in the US for decades.

The move comes amid a much broader economic rethinking: what the EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, last year described as a paradigm shift from the primacy of open markets to the primacy of security; from just in time' to just in case'". The pandemic was a wake-up call, forcing nations to scrutinise their supply chains, and ask whether they had sacrificed resilience for efficiency. The climate crisis is already affecting logistics: low rainfall in Panama has forced the authorities to limit vessels using the canal. Cyber-attacks by criminal actors are another concern.The Japanese port of Nagoya was put out of action by a ransomware attack last summer. But current conflicts and geopolitical dividesaredrivingthe changes.