Increasing numbers of corona cases in China are threatening global supply chains.

After a single worker tested positive, the world's third-largest port after Shanghai and Singapore closed the Meishan terminal in eastern China's Ningbo near Shanghai on Wednesday morning. 

Hendrik Ankenbrand

Business correspondent for China based in Shanghai.

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A quarter of the cargo in the port usually goes through this.

The German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd warned its customers that there could be delays in the delivery of the containers.

It is completely unclear how long the terminal will be closed.

When corona cases occurred in Yantian Port in Shenzhen in June, the authorities closed the largest transshipment point in southern China for a whole month.

This had reduced the number of containers handled by 70 percent and shook supply chains around the world. 

Fir trees and wooden toys are piled up

The incident shows how uncompromisingly the Chinese government continues to pursue its zero-covid strategy a year and a half after the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

When a few dozen corona cases occurred in the city of Yangzhou, a three-hour drive from Shanghai, in late July, the government ordered a complete lockdown.

The sixth mass test began on Wednesday in the city of 4.5 million people.

Eight days earlier, a 64-year-old woman from neighboring Nanjing, where there was also an outbreak, illegally drove to Yangzhou and visited a variety of restaurants and other places before testing positive.

Several party secretaries in the region were then removed from their offices.

If the port in Ningbo continues to be closed, world trade could suffer even more than it did in the case of the Yantian port in June.

According to the Chinese Ministry of Transport, 18.7 million containers were handled in Ningbo in the first seven months of the year - more than in any other port in the country.

In the case of Yantian in June, the ships had to switch to other ports in southern China, where long traffic jams and long delays occurred.

In the factories in China, which are currently starting to deliver the Christmas trees and wooden toys for the Christmas business in Europe and America, the boxes are now piling up.

A lot of electronics and clothing are also usually shipped around the world via the port of Ningbo.

Ningbo City said that anyone who had contact with the infected worker has now been known by name and has been isolated.

In China itself, there is now increasing criticism from the population about how uncompromising the authorities are, even in individual corona cases, regardless of life and the economy.

As before, it is only possible to enter China under extremely difficult conditions.

Anyone who receives a permit at all has to be quarantined in Beijing for three weeks in a room in a hotel that has to be allocated by the state but paid for by the person entering the country.

In Shanghai you can spend the third week in your own apartment.

Despite China's isolation, the delta variant of the virus has now appeared in almost every second province in the country.