For the last decade, China has mostly contributed a never-ending stream of cheap migrant labourers willing to work for very little.
These millions of workers have been poured into factories making anything from cheap toys and garments to silicon chips and motherboards.
Most of what was being made was destined for markets off from mainland shores, feeding the insatiable appetite of consumers in around the world.
The goods filled containers and the containers filled ships and the ships filled ports in the US and Europe. For five years up to 2006 the freight rates for ocean shipping rose every year.
Then the slide began. It has been arrested, perhaps temporarily, but such a sustained and steep growth in exports from China is unlikely to happen again.
Instead, the graph will be steeply climbing the opposite wall. China’s imports in May almost matched its 50 percent increase in exports.
Sure, much of those imports are raw materials to fuel the factories, but much of the finished goods are remaining in the country. China is becoming its own low cost manufacturer.
Discretionary income in the pockets of the middle class is growing fast. Last year the 17 percent growth in retail sales was the biggest in 20 years. There is still a huge gap between urban and rural residents, but the country basically spent its way out of the financial crisis.
The next step is for China to move away from massive investment in export-focused industries and try to grow its consumer-spending sector.
The long-term consequences could be immense. Long-haul shipping won’t go away, but it could see some rebalancing of its own as back-haul cargo volumes. Intra-Asia trade will also benefit.
Mainland logistics companies are still fragmented and inefficient, basically offering little more than rudimentary transport at low cost.
But this is also changing, and as the local logistics infrastructure improves, the services required by the more sophisticated shippers will gradually be met.
That will see inbound cargo volumes increasing, and there’s nothing wrong with that.