Beijing is investing to develop a ubiquitous information network. Such a network would fuse the physical and the virtual and seek control over both. This might seem a distant ambitions or an amorphous attempt at strategic theory. But it is already taking form, and with serious consequences for the international balance of power, both economic and geopolitical, and international freedom. Look, for example, at Beijing’s National Transportation Logistics Platform (LOGINK).
LOGINK is an international platform for logistics interconnection and communication. It illustrates China’s emergent platform geopolitics. As Beijing invests in international transportation infrastructures, it also integrates them into a government-controlled logistics information system. LOGINK aggregates and connects the otherwise fragmented information systems and data streams that define modern transportation and logistics. It does so horizontally across transportation sectors and vertically along industrial chains. LOGINK collects and disseminates ratings data (e.g., on individuals, vehicles, and companies, shaped by the Chinese social credit system); tracking data (e.g., on vehicles, cargo, customs clearance); resource data (e.g., price indices, route planning, supply chains); and so-called “comprehensive data” (e.g., on policies and regulations, standards, operations of companies, infrastructures, and software). LOGINK receives those data from Beijing’s government monitoring systems and State champions, as well as from foreign companies, infrastructures, and information systems to which it connects. LOGINK provides its data and the services built on them, selectively, to its connected company, government, multilateral, regulatory, and infrastructure users across the industrial chain.
Unlike its competitors, or analogous information platforms in other sectors, LOGINK is controlled by China’s Ministry of Transport. The Chinese Communist Party promotes LOGINK as an international standard for logistics interconnection.
LOGINK has integrated into South Korea and Japan’s port information systems. It also has a partnership with the International Port Community Systems Association (IPCSA)—an industry group that spans every continent and includes operators and authorities from seven of the top 35 non-Chinese ports in the world. LOGINK also has bilateral relationships with major global ports, including Klang, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg, Bremen, Barcelona, and Abu Dhabi, among others. Including Chinese ports, LOGINK is active in at least 14 of the world’s 20 largest ports. LOGINK’s information network and standards are also exported—in ecommerce and transportation logistics—by global Chinese commercial giants, including Alibaba and Baidu.
To underscore: LOGINK is a Chinese Ministry of Transport–devised information platform. It is already international. And it is on the verge of gaining traction as an international standard in a critical domain. This platform reveals overlooked realities about the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to power projection – and the resultant threat posed to US modes of power projection and the security of the global commons.
(Last updated: August 2021)