FT: Ships in the Persian Gulf temporarily pretend to be Chinese to avoid strikes

Ships that ended up in the Persian Gulf off the coast of Iran during hostilities in the Middle East are declaring themselves Chinese to avoid attacks.

The Financial Times writes about this.

According to the marine traffic analysis service MarineTraffic, the transponders of at least ten vessels have changed their destination signal to Chinese Owner, All Chinese Crew or Chinese Crew Onboard in the past week.

These are both container ships and oil tankers, some of which were loaded.

Thus, on March 4, the Iron Maiden vessel passed through the Strait of Hormuz, briefly changing its signal to “Chinese Owner” until it reached the coastal waters of Oman.

Also on the first day of the conflict with Iran, the fuel tanker Bogazici passed through the Strait of Hormuz, marking itself as Muslim Vsl Turkish ("Muslim Turkish Vessel"), and after passing through it returned to its original name.

Additionally, some vessels are manipulating their GPS signals to misdirect Iranian weapons, showing up on shipping data platforms as clustered together.

In total, nearly a thousand ships are currently blocked in the Persian Gulf and its immediate vicinity. Iran is attacking not only ships trying to pass through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, but also as far north as Kuwait, where a drone struck an empty fuel tanker this week.

What preceded

After the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28, Iran responded by shelling US bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE and by launching missile strikes on Israel. Some Iranian drones and missiles have hit infrastructure and residential areas in Arab countries.

At the same time, tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has almost stopped. This is a narrow sea corridor between Iran and Oman, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean. About a fifth of the worldʼs oil exports pass through it — tens of millions of barrels a day. The markets reacted instantly: oil, gas and precious metals rose in price.

There is no formal blockade of the strait yet, but some shipping companies have already changed routes or suspended flights. Tanker operators do not want to expose their ships and crews to the risk of attack.

In particular, Bloomberg wrote that ports in India are once again accepting tankers with Russian Urals oil due to the risks of disruptions in supplies from the Middle East. Two oil ships headed for East Asia have changed course to India.

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