By Emmanuele Khouri
A Chinese ship’s ongoing tour of several Latin American countries is a medical service mission, according to Chinese authorities.
But the ship’s recent visit to Brazil heightened concerns that the hospital ship’s mission is more than humanitarian, after Brazilian authorities were prevented from inspecting the massive vessel.
When the ship, dubbed the Silk Road Ark, reached Rio de Janeiro in early January, Brazilian authorities raised concerns that it was providing medical care without local authorization. Others feared that the unauthorized care could be a cover for information gathering or espionage.
Concerns about the visit come alongside increasing U.S. attention to the region with the revival of the Monroe Doctrine under U.S. President Donald Trump and the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Meanwhile, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in December 2025 showed wargames with the People’s Liberation Army simulating combat near Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean.
According to experts and Brazilian authorities who spoke with The Epoch Times, the objective of the tour could be linked to China’s military buildup in the region, in anticipation of a future direct conflict with the United States.
“It is clear that this hospital ship, the Silk Road Ark, is part of the Chinese naval forces. In other words, it is a military ship, even though it is a hospital ship,” Evan Ellis, Latin America research professor at the U.S. Army War College, told The Epoch Times.
A Military–Medical Mission
The trajectory of the Silk Road Ark started in September 2025 in the South Pacific islands. In November 2025, it headed to Latin America, making a technical stop before moving on to Jamaica—recently hit by Hurricane Melissa—then Barbados, and reaching Brazil on Jan. 8.
The ship left Brazil on Jan. 15, spent four days in Uruguay, and is scheduled to visit Chile, Peru, and Mexico before heading back to China.
According to Chinese authorities, the purpose of what has been called Mission Harmony 2025 is to “conduct medical service and cultural exchange activities” with other countries.
But the ship, weighing more than 10,000 tons and belonging to the People’s Liberation Army, gained significant attention during its stop in Brazil after officials received information that the Chinese crew was providing medical care to the local population without authorization from Brazilian authorities. And photos and reports indicated that the ship had military features.
While authorities in Jamaica and Barbados had welcomed the medical care offered by the Chinese ship for their citizens, some Brazilian authorities were more cautious.
“No medical care provided by a foreign doctor within the national territory may be performed without the authorization of the Federal Council of Medicine,” Brazilian Dr. Francisco Cardoso, who leads the agency in the state of São Paulo, told The Epoch Times. “This includes foreign vessels in Brazilian waters.”
The Federal Council of Medicine is responsible for licensing physicians and enforcing compliance with medical laws.
The ship had authorization from the Brazilian navy to be docked in Brazilian waters. However, Cardoso and the Federal Council of Medicine had not given the necessary authorization for the ship’s personnel to perform medical procedures in Brazil.
Allegations reached Cardoso and other authorities that the ship was offering unauthorized medical care to Brazilian citizens.
In light of the allegations, Dr. Raphael Câmara, a consultant to the Medical Council of Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian state in which the ship was docked, was sent to the ship to conduct an inspection.
He said his aim was to gather information about the medical care provided on the ship. “Was there any substance abuse? … What were all those people doing there? Was biological material collected? Blood? Whatever it was, we don’t know,” Câmara told The Epoch Times.
“We don’t know what they did there, and from our perspective, it puts the population at risk.”
He said he was concerned: If unauthorized medical consultations or treatment had taken place, there would be no record of the treatment, complicating medical follow-up.
“Rio de Janeiro doesn’t need any humanitarian aid. We have enough doctors in Rio de Janeiro,” Câmara said. “We understand that there are other places that need this ship much more than Brazil.”
Upon arrival at the ship, Câmara and his team had to wait for the Chinese consul, who was responsible for the operation, to come to the scene. The consul arrived in a van with several Chinese military personnel.
However, the Chinese consul barred Câmara from entering the ship.
“He also said that if we decided to send an official letter, he would not respond,” Câmara said.
“In my view, this was said in a hostile manner. Why say that he would not respond if we sent the letter? It does not seem to me to be the appropriate way to deal with a federal agency that has the power and duty to oversee this.”
Cardoso said it is not normal for this type of inspection request by the authorities to be denied. “They usually allow it, even to show that everything is in order,” he said.
Câmara said he contacted the State Health Secretariat, the body responsible for managing and coordinating the public health system at the state level. Although there is cooperation between the Regional Medical Council of the State of Rio de Janeiro and the State Health Secretariat, the two agencies work independently.
Authorities with the State Health Secretariat had initially promoted the ship’s services and even held a reception for its personnel, Câmara said. But when he attempted to address the issue with them, they denied that any medical care was provided. Chinese authorities also denied it.
The Epoch Times contacted the Rio de Janeiro State Health Secretariat for clarification as to whether medical care was provided by the ship, who received it, and whether it was authorized by the Federal Council of Medicine.
“There is no mention in any communication from the Chinese authorities of any type of health care being provided on the Ark Silk Road hospital ship,“ the secretariat’s office responded. ”The ship’s visit to the country was the result of a request from the Chinese Navy to the Brazilian Navy.”
Military Features
Câmara said the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency, the country’s top health agency, told him that they were also unable to inspect the ship.
“They also could not inspect it, because it was actually a war operation authorized by the Brazilian Ministry of Defense,” Câmara said. “So, in practice, it was supposedly a Chinese military medical ship, providing care and not being inspected [by health authorities].”
Former Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Ernesto Araújo told The Epoch Times that “if the ship’s mission was characterized as the presence of foreign forces on Brazilian territory, this would require prior authorization from Congress.”
The ship’s visit included a joint maritime exercise by the naval forces of both Brazil and China. The Chinese ship also demonstrated a combat and rescue operation.
Cardoso said that for a hospital ship, it was “at least 10 times larger than any similar ship on the market.”
“There was military equipment on board, and not just a little, according to reports from dockworkers. There was also a lot of communications equipment,” he said.
“This is unprecedented, unparalleled in our history, this type of ship docking here.”
Ellis said the Chinese “are doing military medical diplomacy.”
“And other types of intelligence gathering cannot be ruled out either. The ship made stops in Nicaragua, but also in Jamaica, shortly before the start of the U.S. operation to capture Maduro and also afterwards,” he said.
A July 2025 Center for Strategic and International Studies report labeled Jamaica’s Port of Kingston “high risk” because of its strategic location and the extent of Chinese influence there.
Similarly, during its stop in Nicaragua in November 2025, the Chinese crew was received with a special ceremony presided over by high-level military officials, including the Minister of Defense, the chief of the Nicaraguan Navy, the commander-in-chief of the Nicaraguan Army, and the president of the National Assembly.
Regional Ties and Chinese Presence
Araújo expressed concerns over China’s motives.
“No Chinese action is gratuitous or routine, especially in an unprecedented case like this,” he said.
“I believe that it was above all a message to [President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] to indicate that China views Lula’s rapprochement with [President Donald] Trump with displeasure and that China will not easily abandon the immense influence it has gained in Brazil.”
That rapprochement between Brazil and the United States took place during the United Nations meeting in 2025, when Lula and Trump met shortly before Trump’s official speech and agreed to hold an official meeting between the two leaders.
This came after several months of growing tensions and a near-standstill in diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In July 2025, the U.S. Department of State announced sanctions against Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes “for serious human rights abuse,” specifically regarding the trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. In a social media post, Trump characterized the trial as “witch hunt.” Bolsonaro was ultimately sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.
In a July 30, 2025, executive order, Trump announced additional tariffs on Brazil, in response to the “political persecution” of Bolsonaro. The president called the actions of the Brazilian government “an unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”
However, ties between Brazil and China, which replaced the United States as Brazil’s main trading partner in 2009, have become closer in recent years.
In 2024, Lula met with Xi Jinping during the Chinese leader’s trip to Brazil to attend the G20 summit. At the meeting, 37 bilateral agreements were signed, and the relationship between Brazil and China was elevated to a “community with a shared future.”
On Jan. 23, a few days after the Chinese ship left Brazil, Xi spoke by phone with Lula, saying that China is ready to “push for greater development of bilateral relations” with Brazil.
Meanwhile, the United States is also trying to strengthen ties with the Brazilian government.
At the end of 2025, the United States announced the withdrawal of sanctions against de Moraes.
The removal of sanctions was seen as an attempt to rebuild ties with the current Brazilian government. The country has the world’s second-largest reserves of rare-earth minerals, a strategic asset in the China–U.S. dispute.
On Jan. 26, three days after his meeting with Xi, Lula spoke with Trump by phone and announced that he would travel to the United States in February to meet with the U.S. president.
The U.S. government has sought to strengthen ties with several other countries in the region in addition to Brazil.
The U.S. State Department recently announced that it has approved the potential sale of $1.5 billion in equipment and services to upgrade Peru’s main navy base, improving Peru’s port infrastructure in competition with a Chinese-backed mega-port about 50 miles away.
In its 2025 National Security Strategy, the Trump administration revived the Monroe Doctrine, aiming to increase U.S. influence in Latin America, deepen its partnerships, “readjust its global military presence in the region,” and contain the growing expansion of American adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran.
“This is OUR Hemisphere,” the State Department posted on social media two days after the U.S. military captured Maduro.
“This is where we live—and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Jan. 4.
A few days later, China issued a white paper on its policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean, saying it wants to increase its cooperation “on all fronts” with Latin American countries, and adding that “China will actively carry out military exchanges and cooperation with Latin American countries.”
According to Ellis, the Chinese document also “highlights collaboration on security issues in areas such as organized crime, cybersecurity, money laundering, and others.” That collaboration, he said, opens doors for the Chinese to interact with law enforcement, highlighting “China’s intention to expand activities that raise concerns about espionage.”
On Dec. 19, 2025, as the Silk Road Ark headed from Jamaica to Barbados, CCTV showed the Chinese military simulating a war game between the People’s Liberation Army and an opposition force. One image clearly shows combat operations happening near the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, and the Caribbean.
The increased Chinese military presence has raised concerns about the extent of Chinese infrastructure in the region and how it could be used in times of war against the United States.
“Chinese infrastructure in the region can be used in wartime, although its purpose in peacetime may be commercial,” Ellis said.
“For example, the Port of Chancay in Peru. If there is inadequate control of the port or if the Peruvian government is sympathetic to the Chinese regime, it could be used to resupply Chinese warships with weapons or missiles or to support combat operations against the United States or flanks in the eastern Pacific.”
Laura Richardson, then-commander of U.S. Southern Command, warned about this in 2023.
“The importance of the region cannot be overstated,” Richardson said at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. “China’s reach is absolutely global and right under our nose.”
