Chinese shipbuilding has come to dominate a crucial industry in the world: logistics. In the span of a decade, the country has become not only the world’s manufacturing hub but also the main builder of vessels carrying goods across the ocean. So much so that, in recent years, China has gone as far as producing as much as half of all vessels by tonnage. 

This dominance has not come without worries. China’s recent rise in the ship manufacturing industry was recently noticed by the Trump administration and deemed to be a source of concern given the sheer dominance the country has over vessel production. As a result, the U.S. government announced a series of fees against any Chinese-made ships docking at U.S. ports. The fees will apply to vessels starting on Oct 14th, 2025 and will impose a charge of 50 USD per net ton of cargo carried for Chinese companies (the charge for foreign companies operating Chinese vessels will be much lower at 18 USD per ton of cargo). These same fees will increase to 80 USD per net ton of cargo six months after that and, thereafter, increase by 30 USD every year until 2028. (For foreign companies operating Chinese vessels, these fees will rise to 23 USD per net ton by April 2026 and increase by five dollars per net ton each year until 2028).

So China is dominating shipbuilding. Not only that, but it’s grown to dominate such a large share of the market that the U.S. decided to answer with economic might. That is why, in this essay, we decided to look much closer at the rise of China in vessel construction to understand if the U.S. is right in its fears or might be over reacting. Looking at various sources, we can conclude that China does, indeed, control a disproportionate share of the shipbuilding maket—enough for the U.S. to worry in case of potential tensions with China. So much so that, over the last four years, China has built up to 7.7% of the entire shipping fleet. 

Let’s start by looking at shipbuilding today. According to data from U.N. Trade and Development, as of 2023 China was, by far, the single largest producer of commercial vessels. As we show in the figure below, China controls a shocking 50.76% of the entire shipbuilding market. It is followed by South Korea, with 28.30% of the market, and Japan, with 15.4%. This, in turn, means that 94.46% of all vessels in the world were built in one of three countries, all located in Asia.

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Data also shows that Chinese shipbuilders are specializing in two key sectors. In the figure below we replicate UNCTAD data on vessel deliveries (new builds) during 2023—counting only vessels with capacities of over 100 gross tons. As the figure demonstrates, the bulk of Chinese shipbuilding has focused on container ships (13.5 million) and bulk carriers (12.5 million). Thus suggesting a strategic interest in cargo transportation—and, in turn, a vast reach over the bulk of ocean logistics.  Oil tankers and liquified gas carriers represented a much smaller share of overall production at 1.8 and 1.3 million respectively.

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And it’s not that China is building vessels for the world. Its own fleet of vessels is now the largest in the world when accounting for both vessels registered under China’s own flag and foreign flags—a common practice used, for the most part, for tax purposes. As shown in the subsequent figure, China has the largest vessel fleet in the world with 6,600 vessels registered under its own flags plus an additional 2,772 vessels registered under foreign flags—a split that is unseen in most other countries where registering vessels under a different flag is standard practice. For reference, Greece, the second largest vessel owner in the global fleet, has only 580 vessels under its national flag and 4,406 vessels registered under other nations. 

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Despite what the above figures might show, it is worth noting that China hasn’t always dominated the shipbuilding industry. Over a decade ago, when measuring vessel building in gross tons, China was closely tied with South Korea—even losing to its close neighbor in 2016. It wasn’t until 2019, as the figure below shows, that China began to build a great advantage against other ship manufacturers such as South Korea and Japan—as shown in the figure below. By 2023, the gap between China and other shipbuilders had grown to well over 14 million gross tons.

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It’s harder to look at the above data and understand China’s overall production capacity when it comes to the global shipping fleet. To do so, we should consider that total capacity at the global shipping fleet reached 2.24 billion deadweight tons (dwt) in 2023 according to UNCTAD data. But, above, we’ve only looked at Chinese shipbuilding in terms of gross tons—a completely different unit of measurement. Luckily, we were able to identify individual reports of Chinese dwt production from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Put together, over these last four years, Chinese ship yards were responsible for building vessels with 169.82 dwt in capacity. In other terms, this means that, in just four years, China built 7.08% of the global shipping fleet.

In sum, it is true that China has come to dominate the shipbuilding industry. It’s done so by focusing on container ships and bulk cargo vessels, challenging South Korea and Japan for dominance. In the span of a decade, the country went from a close rivalry with South Korea to having an ample lead when it comes to building boats—not to mention that, in just four years, they were able to build 7.08% of the world’s commercial vessel fleet. Whether this justifies the response by the Trump administration is for political analysts to determine. But one cannot deny that China now holds a disproportionate share of the shipbuilding industry.