The US said China was priming a trade superweapon. Then it vanished

WENZHOU, China/TOKYO, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Four years ago, the United States warned that China was poised to unleash a trade superweapon: a state-backed digital dragnet that would rapidly expand across the globe and give Beijing unprecedented insight into the flow of international cargo.

The LOGINK platform promised to streamline global shipping by providing a digital system to exchange logistics data from customs authorities, ports and third-party transport services, replacing paper processes.

Instead, the venture suffered a stunning reversal, reported here for the first time. Its flagship global partnerships have stalled, it dropped out of an ‌international maritime association, and it has become mired in domestic lawsuits over unpaid bills, according to interviews with more than 20 shipping industry insiders and officials, as well as a Reuters review of legal filings.

When a reporter visited LOGINK's operations hub in the coastal city of Wenzhou in September, the offices appeared abandoned: ‌lights off, reception bare, computer cabling stripped out.

Calls and emails to LOGINK went unanswered. China's transport ministry declined to answer questions. The ministry in June, however, issued a policy document calling for the system to be connected to more domestic data streams.

LOGINK's international retreat is a setback for Beijing, which has been engaged in a battle with Washington to control the physical infrastructure and technologies underpinning global shipping, a sector that carries 80% ​of world trade. The platform's decline will be welcomed by the US, which contributed to LOGINK's reversal in fortunes by "naming and shaming" those who used the system, said Randall Schriver, chair of a US Congress commission that issued a report on LOGINK in 2022.

Reuters could not establish why the platform championed by China's cabinet as a "key project" abruptly went dark and spiraled into financial and legal troubles. The timing of its retreat, however, coincided with US efforts to pressure allies and organizations that had made tentative steps to collaborate with LOGINK as it pushed for global expansion.

US officials and security experts worried that Beijing could use the system to gather non-public information on traded goods, volumes and pricing to help Chinese firms undercut Western rivals. Some also feared that LOGINK could be used to track sensitive military shipments, including US arms deliveries to Ukraine and Taiwan, many of which move through commercial freight networks.