Loadstar Leader: Washington’s Cosco spying claims a new hat on an old head

US alleges global 'shadow transhipment network' conspiracy to evade tariffs The White House is claiming more than 40 countries, including Singapore and Vietnam, have been ... DSV: NEW NADIR AMZN: LEGAL RISKDSV: FALLING DOWNDHL: CORPORATE REORG DONEAAPL: FAREWELLDHL: BOLT-ON DEAL IN FORWARDINGUPS: CHANGING SKINCHRW: RALLYING ON WEAKNESS DSV: NEW NADIR AMZN: LEGAL RISKDSV: FALLING DOWNDHL: CORPORATE REORG DONEAAPL: FAREWELLDHL: BOLT-ON DEAL IN FORWARDINGUPS: CHANGING SKINCHRW: RALLYING ON WEAKNESS In just over three weeks Donald Trump and XI Jinping are due to meet in Washington DC for the latest round of bilateral talks. Meanwhile, Reuters reports today that US intelligence officials believe Chinese state-owned carrier Cosco “uses concealed equipment onboard its ships to spy on military communications near the coastlines of target nations including the US”, and that the shipping line “has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing”. “The arrangement allows China to collect communication signals from vessels and aircraft operating across Europe, North America and Asia,” they said. Like, duh – it would be more surprising if it wasn’t true. The Communist Party of China/government of China has always had a presence in virtually every sector of the country’s economy, and certainly a physical presence in its leading state-owned enterprises (SOEs), so the claim that CCP members hold both senior management positions at its largest shipping company, as well as among the crews of its ships, and that the vessels themselves are used for intelligence gathering as well as carrying cargo should really not be news to anyone familiar with shipping in the 21st century. It’s been hiding in plain sight all along. Logically, the argument is a syllogism with two premises: Cosco (and let’s not forget the erstwhile China Shipping, which served the same purpose until folded into Cosco around a decade ago) is China de facto supply chain operator; meanwhile the country and the CCP use economic leverage as part of its international relations strategy… therefore the shipping company is one vehicle (pun intended) for the Chinese leadership’s geopolitical ambitions. Tariffs on Chinese exports; the pending 301 port fees on Chinese carriers; Panama; Iran; threats to fund new container facilities in Greece… the list of trade flashpoints on which the world’s largest two economies collide lengthens by the day. The trouble is, to borrow one of Trump’s favoured analogies, that the US doesn’t really hold the cards for this game. It doesn’t have the transport assets on any scale to commercially compete with China – as has been established by bi-partisan congressional investigations and both current and previous administrations – which means that one of the few recourses available to Washington is to limit Cosco’s access to the US market and make it prohibitively expensive for it to do business there. And in this respect, the proposed 301 port fees – proposed in 2025 but officially in abeyance until this November – is probably the strongest card in its hand, and we can expect the spying claims will be presented as strengthening the case for the introduction of the 301 fees – and the groundwork for this is likely to be on display in Washington on 24 September. For uninterrupted access, sign in or sign up to The Daily News, Premium or The Loadstar Enterprise Plan. Comment on this article