Entity Type: PRC Company

China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited (中國遠洋海運集團有限公司) is a state-owned shipping and logistics conglomerate headquartered in Shanghai, owned by the State Council and supervised by SASAC. The group was formally established on February 18, 2016, following the State Council’s January 2016 approval of a merger between China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company and China Shipping (Group) Company, itself preceded by a December 2015 approval of the restructuring plan. The group has invested in 21 container terminals, port facilities where containers are loaded onto and unloaded from ships, including those at Greece’s Piraeus port and in Abu Dhabi. According to its history page, the group states that its mission includes contributing to the construction of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” (21世紀海上絲綢之路), the seaborne component of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (一帶一路), aimed at extending Chinese commercial and strategic reach across Eurasian and Indo-Pacific trade routes.

Transsion Holdings (傳音控股), founded in August 2013 in Shenzhen by George Zhu (竺兆江), is a consumer electronics manufacturer specializing in smartphones and mobile devices for emerging markets. The company is one of Africa’s dominant smartphone manufacturers, earning Zhu the moniker “Africa’s Mobile King” (非洲手機之王). The company went public on Shanghai’s STAR Market (an exchange for sci-tech companies) in September 2019, raising 400 million US dollars. Together, Transsion’s TECNO, Infinix, and Itel mobile brands control 51 percent of Africa’s smartphone market. According to analysts, it has performed strongly by offering localized features such as camera algorithms tailored for darker skin tones as well as support for African languages. The company has expanded beyond Africa into Southeast Asia, Latin America, and South Asia. Chinese state media have celebrated Zhu’s success, with such outlets as the Global Times (环球时报), affiliated with the Party’s official People’s Daily, praising him for his role in China-Africa relations.