Two senior Trump administration officials have alleged that China’s state-owned shipping giant COSCO reportedly uses concealed equipment aboard its vessels to collect military communications near the coastlines of target countries, including the United States.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the US assessment of the Chinese programme, said COSCO has maintained a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing.
According to an exclusive Reuters report, the arrangement allows China to collect communication signals from vessels and aircraft operating across , North America and Asia.
One of the officials said the advanced equipment aboard the ships is designed to gather information about “military communications technologies and encryption developments.” The effort also allows Beijing to monitor key shipping lanes and maritime routes that are important for both global trade and military navigation, the official said as quoted by Reuters.
The officials did not specify the type of equipment allegedly being used aboard COSCO vessels. However, they described the systems as “sophisticated signals intelligence collection” platforms rather than routine communications hardware.
According to the officials, the information collected is used by Beijing to strengthen its position in territorial disputes, while also providing maritime reconnaissance and early-warning indications of foreign military targets.
According to the report, COSCO did not respond to a request for comment, while China’s embassy in Washington rejected the US claims.
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‘Vilifying China’
China’s embassy said the Chinese government would never ask any company or individual to “collect or provide data, information or intelligence located abroad against local laws.”
“We oppose vilifying China by peddling the so-called ‘intelligence collection’ narrative, which is totally baseless,” embassy spokesperson Liu Chang told Reuters.
The allegations come amid longstanding concerns in Washington over the links between Chinese commercial shipping companies and the country’s military and intelligence apparatus.
A report published by the US Naval War College in April 2025 said it was likely that China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was harnessing the country’s fishing and commercial shipping fleets for intelligence and surveillance gathering.
The Pentagon added COSCO to its list of companies linked to China’s military in January 2025. The designation carries serious reputational costs for companies and can lead to US government procurement bans, but does not amount to formal sanctions.
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Chinese law requires the country’s firms to support government intelligence work.
Despite the concerns, COSCO remains one of the world’s leading shipping companies calling at US ports and has several terminal service joint ventures for container ships at US ports.
The Trump administration had planned last year to impose billions of dollars in port fees on Chinese shipping companies, including COSCO, as part of an effort to revive the US shipbuilding and maritime industries.
That plan was paused after Trump reached an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping last October for a year-long trade war détente. The agreement expires in November, and a possible extension is expected to be part of the September talks between the two leaders.
(With inputs from Reuters)
