Officials from one of America’s top shipbuilders reportedly visited China last month to consider enlisting a Chinese company to build a dry dock that would be used for U.S. Navy ships.
Employees from Ingalls Shipbuilding, part of Huntington Ingalls Industries, visited China for two weeks to see multiple ports, the Washington Post reported. The employees also had a meeting at the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai, which was facilitated by Sen. Thad Cochran, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
“Our office contacts on this matter were only with U.S. officials. This particular inquiry to the U.S. State Department legislative affairs office was for point of contact information within the U.S. Consulate in Shanghai for a constituent, and not a specific meeting request,” said Chris Gallegos, a spokesman for Cochran, R-Miss.
Ingalls Shipbuilding is based in Mississippi, which is where Cochran is from.
“As many other shipyards in America, including those that also build Navy ships, have done in the last decade when needing to replace a large dry dock, Ingalls Shipbuilding is looking across the world market for a solution,” said company spokeswoman Beci Brenton. “Since no decision has been made, it is premature to discuss this effort further.”
Company representatives reportedly visited seven ports in China to find a company to build a new dry dock.
The visit raised some concerns among Pentagon leadership.
“Ingalls Shipbuilding was here looking at Chinese shipbuilding companies to build a dry dock for USN ship construction,” Steve Angel, the defense liaison officer in Shanghai, wrote in an email obtained by the Post. “Lobbied for by a U.S. Senator (Cochran). Not sure what Big Navy’s or OSD’s awareness are, but wanted to flag this for awareness.”
An official with the defense secretary’s office replied that the Pentagon would “want to do some fact finding.”
The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
