WENZHOU, CHINA/TOKYO – 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.
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 review of legal filings.
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