Lost one ship in China
I believe the answer is:
missing
'lost' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'one ship in china' is the wordplay.
'one' becomes 'I' (Roman numeral).
'ship' becomes 'SS' (prefix in ship names eg SS Great Britain).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'china' becomes 'ming' (Chinese porcelain from the Ming dynasty).
'i'+'ss'='iss'
'iss' put within 'ming' is 'MISSING'.
(Other definitions for missing that I've seen before include "Absent with location unknown" , "Lost without" , "Not to be found" .)