The role of Chinese cabotage in Northeast-Asian hub-port development and container shipbuilding

China's economic boom in the 1990s and 2000s created an unprecedented level of seaborne trade in Northeast Asia, which was regulated by various maritime policies. The most notable were cabotage laws, which restricted the free movement of foreign vessels in Chinese waters. These restrictions created a demand for international container transhipment; a call answered by different countries to different degrees, largely based on their historic economic links with China. In this article, we review the rise of transhipment hubs in Northeast Asia, while also examining the synergistic relationship between hub ports and container shipbuilding. We demonstrate that it is not a coincidence that over 80 per cent of all new container ships are produced in Northeast Asia, linking the transhipment boom to the phenomenon of container ship overcapacity observed in 2016. We also offer a five-stage visual summary depicting how a country can respond to an export boom by adjusting cabotage policies: first to facilitate export, then to protect domestic shipping. This concept offers specific predictions for two hubs actively involved in transhipment with China: Hong Kong and Busan.