Two senior Trump administration officials told Reuters that China’s state-owned shipping giant COSCO uses concealed equipment on board its ships to spy on military communications near the coastlines of target nations including the U.S. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment of the Chinese program, said COSCO has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing that allows China to collect communication signals from vessels and aircraft operating across Europe, North America and Asia. Officials said the advanced equipment aboard the ships is intended to enable China to gather information about military communications technologies and encryption developments, while also allowing Beijing to monitor key shipping lanes and maritime routes crucial for trade and military navigation. The officials described the platforms as sophisticated signals intelligence collection systems rather than routine communications hardware, and said Beijing uses the gathered information to bolster its position in territorial disputes and provide maritime reconnaissance and early-warning indications of foreign military targets.
COSCO did not respond to a request for comment, while China’s embassy in Washington rejected the claims, with a spokesperson telling Reuters they oppose “vilifying China by peddling the so-called ‘intelligence collection’ narrative.” The Pentagon put COSCO on its list of companies linked to China’s military in January 2025, a designation that carries reputational costs and U.S. government procurement bans but does not entail formal sanctions. A report published by the U.S. Naval War College in April 2025 had already flagged the likelihood that China’s People’s Liberation Army was harnessing the country’s fishing and commercial shipping fleets for intelligence purposes. The allegations surface weeks before President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are due to meet in Washington for a summit, where security and trade issues are expected to feature prominently on the agenda.
Source: Reuters (via gCaptain) — https://gcaptain.com/chinese-shipper-cosco-collects-intel-for-beijing-with-concealed-equipment/
Tags: COSCO, China, National Security, US-China Relations
