China is betting that high-tech, automated ports will give it the upper hand in the industry that moves more than 80% of the goods traded around the world by volume, as leaders prepare to gather in Shenzhen for next week's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

At the Mawan Terminal in Shenzhen, driverless trucks, remote-controlled cranes and artificial intelligence systems already handle containers with little human involvement. It is one of dozens of automated port operations across China that Beijing hopes will give it an edge in global shipping, on show when leaders gather in Shenzhen for the APEC summit on 18 and 19 November.

Sixty automated terminals, with more to come

China is home to 60 automated terminals, more than any other country, according to its transport ministry, and it aims to have 90 by 2030.

The jewel in the crown is the New Qianwan Container Terminal in the eastern city of Qingdao, which the ministry describes as the world's first fully automated terminal. Its operator says each crane can handle 61 containers an hour, more than double the rate at conventional docks.

The technology is already accelerating the flow of Chinese goods to global markets. At Qingdao Port, automated guided vehicles now move containers around a fully automated terminal, and the port has developed nearly 20 types of intelligent robots, including a high-voltage shore power robot that completed tasks for more than 200 vessels in 2025.

Western concerns over dependence

Western officials and analysts, already wary of Beijing's sizable stakes in ports around the world, fear its push to export shipping technology could give it new leverage over global trade.

"It's a very uncomfortable dependence, and it's one that could have major strategic downsides," said Isaac Kardon, an expert on China's maritime strategy with the Institute for Defense Analyses, a US government-funded think tank.

Those downsides range from Beijing gaining monopolistic positions in emerging technologies that could be used for economic coercion to exploiting back doors to spy on rivals or cripple trade networks in a crisis, Kardon said.

China's advance has not been smooth. Reuters reported last month on the quiet collapse of LOGINK, a China-backed shipping data platform that some in Washington feared could become a trade superweapon, after the United States pressured allies and organisations to cut ties with it.

Technology already travelling abroad

Chinese firms are already packaging smart-port technology for overseas markets. Driverless trucks made by self-driving truck maker Westwell now run at Felixstowe, Britain's busiest container port, while telecoms equipment giant Huawei is also selling smart-port systems abroad.

China has provided some $4.8 billion in financing for port equipment since 2000 at 69 ports in 47 countries, according to a March report by AidData, a research lab at William & Mary university in the US. That is on top of the $15.5 billion Beijing has spent on building or acquiring stakes in foreign ports.

Beijing is also drawing on the Belt and Road model that helped it acquire stakes in ports around the world, courting developing countries with technology it says can boost efficiency and trade with the world's second-largest economy.

Software is the harder prize

While China's port hardware has spread widely, persuading countries to adopt its software has proved harder. China has struggled to make inroads in terminal operating systems, a market long dominated by US firms, and its transport ministry said in May that breaking foreign firms' "monopoly" on such software would relieve "the greatest pain point for China's port industry".

There are signs of progress. A 2025 filing by state-backed port operator China Merchants Port highlighted a key transport ministry project to replace foreign systems at international ports, which it said it had completed by installing its homegrown system at Brazil's Paranagua port. The firm has also rolled out its system at terminals in Sri Lanka, Greece, Italy and Turkey.

During preparatory meetings for the Shenzhen summit, China has proposed leading working groups on electronic bills of lading, digital versions of documents traditionally used as receipts for seaborne cargo, and on customs databases powered by AI and big data.

"Whoever completes the digital transformation first will gain the upper hand in the next round of global port and shipping competition," China's transport ministry said in a May editorial published on its website.

Wolfgang Lehmacher, a consultant and former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum, said China was willing to play a long game. "They make an investment there, they run a pilot project here, but they have such firepower that these dots become a mesh, and the mesh becomes the network, and the network becomes the Chinese orbit of control — and I speak of supply chain control," he said.