COSCO, the China Ocean Shipping Company, was founded in 1961 as a Chinese government agency. Its Guangzhou subsidiary bought a used British vessel, renamed it Guanghua and sent it on its maiden voyage to Jakarta in April 1961. After the U.S. and China resumed diplomatic relations, COSCO signed a 1979 agreement with the Lykes Brothers Steamship Company that opened commercial sea routes between the two countries, and that year it represented China in work with ITT to repair communication facilities in coastal cities. In 1981 it contracted with Pakistan’s national tanker company to carry crude oil. Scrutiny followed. In 1991 the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission probed claims that China restricted U.S. flag carriers, in 1997 it looked at alleged underpricing but found too little evidence for a formal probe, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer pressed for an investigation of COSCO’s lease of a former naval base in Long Beach, California.

In August 1993 the cargo ship Yin He lost civilian GPS off Oman when the U.S. disabled it over alleged chemical weapons materials bound for Iran. After 24 days at sea, inspectors from China, Saudi Arabia and the U.S. signed a certification that none were aboard. That year the company became the China Ocean Shipping Group Company, spinning off Chimbusco and COSCO Logistics and using backdoor listings such as the February 1997 purchase of Hong Kong-listed Shun Shing Holdings. After 2008 it gradually acquired Greece’s Port of Piraeus, which went from about 400,000 containers a year to nearly five million by 2018. A 2015 and 2016 merger with China Shipping Group formed China COSCO Shipping, and in 2022 it kept shipping to Russia as most carriers halted service.

• The Yin He’s operators said the cargo was paper goods, hardware and machine parts.
• COSCO Pacific listed in Hong Kong in 1994, and the group held a 20 percent stake in Chong Hing Bank for a decade.
• In July 2009 the bulk carrier Full City lost engine power in a storm off Norway, ran aground and spilled about 200 tons of bunker fuel.
• The Full City was Panama-flagged and run from COSCO’s Hong Kong division, a chain that complicated accountability.
• Today the fleet tops 1,100 ships carrying over 1.5 million TEUs and calling at more than a thousand ports.