China’s state-owned COSCO Shipping is seeking a 20 %–30 % stake in a planned US$23 billion restructuring of CK Hutchison Holdings’ global ports portfolio, which includes the Balboa and Cristóbal terminals at either end of the Panama Canal, according to people familiar with the negotiations. The bid comes as CK Hutchison looks to sell the business to a consortium led by BlackRock and to bring in a strategic investor acceptable to Beijing after Chinese regulators opened a review of the transaction. Panama’s government is simultaneously moving to reshape the concession under which CK Hutchison’s Panama Ports Company has run the canal facilities since 1997. President José Raúl Mulino said he is ready to negotiate a new contract that meets national interests, after the comptroller-general filed two Supreme Court suits on 30 July seeking to annul the current 25-year extension, alleging constitutional violations and about US$1.2 billion in unpaid fees. Washington has backed the push to dislodge the Hong Kong-based operator. US Ambassador Kevin Marino Cabrera this week called Panama Ports “a bad operator” and urged Panama to bar companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party from the strategic waterway. The overlapping legal, commercial and geopolitical pressures leave the future ownership and management of the canal’s key container terminals in flux.