Photos and commentary circulating on social media and defense outlets appeared to show a Chinese cargo ship modified into a warship-like platform, fitted with containerized vertical-launch missile systems, radar arrays, and defensive weapons.
Newsweek has reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry for comment.
Why It Matters
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has sharply increased its vertical‑launch system (VLS) missile capacity, a key indicator of modern naval firepower. Beijing’s rapid naval modernization and expanding strike capacity are part of its effort to close the gap with the U.S. and assert maritime dominance.
What To Know
Imagery of the civilian vessel showed a close-in weapon system (CIWS), a standard PLAN defensive sensor for naval guns, with additional sensors reportedly fitted within shipping containers. Naval News reported Thursday that it has independently confirmed the vessel’s existence, citing satellite imagery showing it in Shanghai on Christmas Day.
The vessel was identified as the Zhong Da 79, with the Maritime Executive platform reporting its track line suggests it underwent a refit from mid-April to mid-August and has since been moored at an industrial pier on Shanghai’s Huangpu River.
China intentionally designs civilian vessels with the capability for rapid conversion into military use, Reuters reported in November, identifying a “shadow navy” of cargo ships and ferries rehearsing amphibious support roles for Taiwan scenarios. The blurred line between commercial and military use has raised unease across the shipping industry, with executives telling the agency earlier this year that Beijing’s fleet could play a role in a potential Taiwan conflict.
The U.S. Department of Defense previously warned about China’s potential use of civilian vessels for military purposes.
In 2005, the PLAN’s VLS capacity was just about 1.5 percent of the U.S. Navy’s; by 2015 it had risen to over 13 percent. By the end of 2024, PLAN surface ships carried more than 50 percent of the U.S. Navy’s total VLS cells, with nearly one‑third of that capacity added in 2021-2022, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
“The gap between the capacity of the U.S. Navy and that of the PLAN is set to continue to close for the foreseeable future,” Johannes Fischbach, maritime research analyst noted in the IISS analysis published last year.
What People Are Saying
Open-Source Intelligence analyst Jaidev Jamwal wrote Friday on X: “Weaponization of civilian assets like this should be prohibited. Feels so wrong. It is only the terrorists and terrorist-like regimes who use civilian camouflage for such purpose. What stops someone paranoid with an itchy trigger finger or even just bad intel or grainy surveillance photo to make a mistake and fire on a real civilian ship!”
A shipping executive told Reuters on March 6: “We don’t want to be in a position where China comes knocking, wanting our ships, and the U.S. is targeting us on the other side.”
U.S. Department of Defense in 2024 annual report to Congress: “It is possible the [People’s Republic of China] is developing a launcher that can fit inside a standard commercial shipping container for covert employment of the YJ-18 aboard merchant ships.”
What Happens
The specific missiles the vessel could carry remain unclear, but the container VLS cells could likely fire Chinese anti-ship and land-attack missiles such as the CJ‑10, YJ‑18, and YJ‑21, according to Naval News.
