Two senior officials in the Trump administration stated that Chinese state-owned shipping giant COSCO uses hidden onboard equipment to intercept military communications off the coastlines of targeted nations, including the United States. ^[1] In January 2025, the Pentagon added COSCO to its list of companies linked to China's military, imposing U.S. government procurement bans and reputational damage. ^[2] The arrangement reportedly enables China to gather signal communications from commercial and military ships and aircraft across North America, Europe, and Asia. ^[3] The Chinese embassy in Washington rejected the allegations, with spokesperson Liu Chang stating that the so-called intelligence collection narrative is totally baseless and that the Chinese government would never instruct any enterprise to collect data abroad against local laws. ^[4] One of the officials said on 2026-09-01 that the advanced equipment aboard the ships is intended to enable China to gather information about military communications technologies and encryption developments. ^[5] The officials said on 2026-09-01 that 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. ^[6]