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US wakes up to China’s shipbuilding dominanceUS wakes up to China’s shipbuilding dominance

USTR report calls China's dominance unreasonable as US builds five ships per year to China's 1,700.

Nick Savvides, Europe correspondent

January 17, 2025

2 Min Read
Image: CSSC

Washington has apparently just woken up to China's position in the world shipbuilding market, publishing an extraordinary report accusing Beijing of undermining American businesses and denying commercial opportunities to US workers.

Katherine Tai, the Ambassador at the US Trade Representative (USTR) based in Washington has reported on the development of shipbuilding in China and its impact on American shipyards.

“Beijing’s targeted dominance of these sectors undermines fair, market-oriented competition, increases economic security risks, and is the greatest barrier to revitalisation of US industries, as well as the communities that rely on them,” said Tai.

According to the USTR, the US ranked first in 1975 in shipbuilding, launching 70 ships per year, today the US industry builds just five vessels compared to China’s 1,700 ships per year.

In a statement published on 16 January the USTR found that, “PRC’s targeting for dominance [is] unreasonable because it displaces foreign firms, deprives market-oriented businesses and their workers of commercial opportunities, and lessens competition and creates dependencies on the PRC, increasing risk and reducing supply chain resilience.”

USTR also noted that US trade is carried out on vessels built in China using finance from state owned institutions and carried vessels owned by Chinese shipping lines.

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The report was commissioned following a petition from five US trade unions who were concerned at the loss of jobs.

“On March 12, 2024, five national labour unions filed a petition requesting an investigation into the acts, policies, and practices of China targeting the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors for dominance.”

Donald Trump will be inaugurated as president of the US on 20 January. He claims to back US workers, and in a recent intervention did back port labour unions on the US East Coast in their contractual dispute against foreign-owned terminal operators.

Nevertheless, China’s dominance of the shipbuilding industry is relatively recent. In 1975 Japan was the rising star of the global shipbuilding industry, but by the late twentieth century its position was usurped by South Korea.

China’s dominance of the shipbuilding sector was achieved around 10 years ago when the country overtook South Korea as the leading shipbuilder, though even then the country’s build quality was questionable.

At one stage a senior naval architect in China said that often two pumps were installed on tankers where one was necessary to allow for breakdowns and that shipyard welders were farmers with little training and were freelance workers.

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Since the late noughties, following a government decree, workers in China’s shipyards were employed under better conditions, with training, safety measures improved, more efficient energy supplies, pensions and more. Over the subsequent years the professionalisation of China’s shipyards has improved the quality of the vessels it builds.

The USTR is mandated to negotiate directly with foreign governments to create trade agreements, to resolve disputes, and to participate in global trade policy organisations.

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About the Author

Nick Savvides

Europe correspondent

Experienced journalist working online, in monthly magazines and daily news coverage. Nick Savvides began his journalistic career working as a freelance from his flat in central London, and has since worked in Athens, while also writing for some major publications including The Observer, The European, Daily Express and Thomson Reuters. 

Most recently Nick joined The Loadstar as the publication’s news editor to develop the profile of the publication, increase its readership and to build a team that will market, sell and report on supply chain issues and container shipping news. 

This was a similar brief to his time at ci-online, the online publication for Containerisation International and Container News. During his time at ci-online Nich developed a team of freelancers and full-time employees increasing its readership substantially. He then moved to International Freighting Weekly, a sister publication, IFW also focused on container shipping, rail and trucking and ports. Both publications were published by Informa. 

Following his spell at Informa Nick joined Reed’s chemical reporting team, ICIS, as the chemical tanker reporter. While at ICIS he also reported on the chemical industry and spent some time on the oil & gas desk. 

Nick has also worked for a time at Lloyd’s Register, which has an energy division, and his role was writing their technical magazine, before again becoming a journalist at The Naval Architect for the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. After eight successful years at RINA, he joined Fairplay, which published a fortnightly magazine and daily news on the website.

Nick's time at Fairplay saw him win the Seahorse Club Journalist of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year 2018 awards.

After Fairplay closed, Nick joined an online US start-up called FreightWaves. 

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