Smooth sailing for COSCO, US partners

Twenty years since it started operations at the Port of Boston, the Chinese company COSCO has opened vessel services that have preserved 9,000 maritime and shipping-related jobs and created thousands more across Massachusetts and the six states of New England. six states of New England.

So successful has the collaboration been that representatives of the Massachusetts Port Authority and the International Longshoremen's Association, or ILA, went to Washington on Friday and presented a plaque of recognition to China's Ambassador to the United States, Qin Gang.

Qin wore a commemorative jacket from the ILA and Port of Boston when he delivered a speech at the embassy, hailing COSCO's collaboration with the port as "an example of the win-win economic and trade cooperation between China and the US".

The jacket was presented by the ILA Vice-President Bernie O'Donnell. He represented more than 9,000 wharf workers at the Port of Boston and their families to send the gift and express appreciation to Chinese companies for their long-term contributions to Boston.

In 2002, when the Danish shipping line Maersk, part of AP Moller-Maersk Group, closed its routes to the Boston port, the China Ocean Shipping Company, also known as COSCO, opened direct service from the Chinese mainland to that port.

That operation came when the historical port was on the verge of closing and many workers faced losing their jobs, Qin said in his speech.

Michael Meyran, the port authority's maritime director, said the 20-year partnership between COSCO Shipping and the Port of Boston has created thousands of jobs across Massachusetts and New England.

"This 20-year partnership has been the perfect model of how to do business between the US and China," Meyran said. "We look forward to continuing this partnership of business cooperation for the long future."

COSCO Shipping has become the Port of Boston's biggest customer, accounting for more than half of its market share. In addition to saving 9,000 jobs in the region's shipping industry, it has also created another 400,000 jobs and energized many trading companies, Qin said.

For COSCO, operating in the US is like a stress test in a high-standard, international environment. While collaboration with the Port of Boston has brought jobs and vitality to the local community, it has also helped COSCO improve management, becoming more competitive and productive, Qin said.

In China's more than 40 years of reform and opening-up, the US has become deeply involved in the country's growth and has been a big beneficiary.

At least 70,000 US companies have invested in China, 97 percent of them making profits in the past year, and revenue of 64 percent of them grew, Qin said, citing recent figures.

The value of China-US trade exceeded $580 billion in 2020 and $750 billion last year.

"Our trade has provided many quality but inexpensive products for American consumers, and supported 2.6 million American jobs," Qin said.

The US is one of the biggest sources of foreign investment for China, and China is the No 2 holder of US treasury bonds. The two countries "have long been bound together by our shared interests", he said.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of former US president Richard Nixon's visit to China, and a lesson learned from the past half century is that China-US collaboration can deliver "many things good for both countries and the whole world", Qin said.

"It can also bring tangible benefits and opportunities to places like the Port of Boston, to our longshoremen and to all of us," he said, adding that it would be a political tragedy benefiting no one if the two countries enter into conflict and confrontation, fight a trade war or a new Cold War.

"Faced with all these global challenges, fighting the pandemic, restoring growth, stabilizing the industrial and supply chain and addressing climate change, China and the US have no better choice than solidarity and cooperation. This is also the expectation of the international community."