Against the prevailing narrative of the The Belt and Road as a top-down strategy to spread China’s geopolitical influence, there is the BRI’s impact through its first decade as emanating «from the middle out and bottom up» via transport-enabled corridors traversing a large number of regions within and across national territories.

The market is bracing for a massive inflow of new capacity amid slowing demand and resolved congestion. This makes capacity discipline paramount for container liners, but that won’t be easy with increasing competitive pressure after years of record profits