Trend US-China maritime rivalry spreads from navigation rights to shipbuilding and logistics

Summary

Maritime friction between the two powers is no longer confined to freedom of navigation in the South China Sea but has widened into a contest for leadership in shipbuilding and maritime logistics. Washington regards China's asymmetric weight in shipbuilding and shipping as a strategic risk and believes Chinese yard dominance underwrites a global naval build-up. Most Chinese shipbuilders operate under state guidance, and core yards such as those of China State Shipbuilding Corporation play a central role in military-civil fusion. The US has therefore tightened rules on Chinese shipbuilding, including port charges on Chinese vessels calling at US ports. The report treats shipbuilding and maritime logistics as an important new axis of economic security competition that Korea must prepare for.