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Container ships are the workhorses of globalization. Operating on regular schedules—such that an identical vessel departs Shanghai every Wednesday, stops in Singapore nine days later and arrives in Antwerp five weeks hence, with tight connections to barges and freight trains—intermodal container transport gave manufacturers and retailers the confidence to plan tightly organized long-distance supply chains.

Not long ago Vietnam’s Bac Giang province was one of the nation’s poorest regions, known for producing rice, lychees and poultry dubbed “running chicken.” That was before the global tech supply chain shifted its way.