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China’s state-backed LOGINK logistics platform, once promoted as a digital gateway connecting ports and supply chains around the world, has disappeared from the public internet, marking a significant setback for Beijing’s effort to extend its influence over global trade data.
The platform’s original website, https://www.logink.cn/, is currently inaccessible. According to a Reuter's investigation, LOGINK’s international partnerships had stalled, its participation in an industry data-sharing initiative had ended and an operational centre in Wenzhou appeared deserted when reporters visited in September.
Neither LOGINK nor China’s Ministry of Transport has publicly explained why the website went offline. Calls and emails from Reuters went unanswered, while the ministry declined to respond to questions about the platform’s condition. The available evidence establishes that its public-facing presence and several international projects have contracted, but does not conclusively establish the cause.
A system designed to connect global trade
LOGINK, formally known as the National Transportation and Logistics Public Information Platform, began in Zhejiang province in 2007. It was designed to bring together information from ports, customs agencies, trucking companies, warehouses and other transport businesses.
The system promised to replace fragmented paperwork with a common digital network through which users could exchange documents, track shipments and monitor cargo movements. Chinese authorities later promoted LOGINK internationally as a “one-stop” logistics portal connected to information systems around the world.
A 2022 assessment by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said the platform had agreements with more than 20 ports and was offered free to participants willing to use its technical standards. LOGINK also became part of a data-sharing network involving China, Japan and South Korea.
That ambition made the website more than a conventional corporate homepage. It was the public entrance to a project intended to demonstrate China’s capacity to establish standards for the digital infrastructure surrounding international shipping.
A visible blow to international ambitions
The disappearance of the website does not necessarily mean that every domestic LOGINK function has ceased. China’s Transport Ministry issued a policy document in June calling for the system to be connected to additional domestic data streams, according to Reuters.
Its international position, however, has weakened substantially. Japan lost access to LOGINK data without notice, while meetings involving the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean systems have not been held since China cancelled a planned gathering in 2024. Proposed cooperation with major European ports including Rotterdam and Sines produced no significant operational results.
LOGINK also left the International Port Community Systems Association after reportedly stopping payment of its membership fees. The association confirmed that a wider data-sharing project involving LOGINK was inactive.
The retreat represents a blow to the platform’s original purpose regardless of why its website went down. LOGINK was conceived not simply as a Chinese database but as an international network capable of linking countries, companies and ports through standards developed with China at their centre.
The website’s continued absence is therefore a concrete sign of the distance between that sweeping goal and LOGINK’s present condition. What remains unclear is whether the shutdown is temporary, part of a restructuring or evidence of a more permanent decline.
