Are China’s ports and shipping companies being used to spy on the world?

The growing reach of China across the global port industry is a decades-long trend that few in the industry could not be aware of. On occasions it has been blunted by broadsides as China’s rivals – largely the US – have criticised its port operators and shipping lines for collecting strategic information on behalf of the Chinese government. Many in the industry have traditionally viewed such claims with a great deal of scepticism, but this article from Foreign Policy details just how deep Beijing has its fangs into its commercial shipping firms, as geopolitical tensions continue to rise to worrying heights: “First, China has introduced massive and little understood information-gathering infrastructure at critical ports worldwide. Second, Chinese laws require that all Chinese companies operating overseas – both private and state-owned – must gather and report intelligence on foreign entities to the Chinese government.”