How Does the Chinese Supply Chain Change Globally After the Pandemic?

How Does the Chinese Supply Chain Change Globally After the Pandemic?
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How Does the Chinese Supply Chain Change Globally After the Pandemic?
The coronavirus pandemic revealed the fragility of the global supply chain (GSC), with China, the United States, and the European countries halving their trades due to production disruptions and travel restrictions to arrest the spread of the virus. The Chinese supply chain has been clogged up with the increasing consumer demand and several bottlenecks related to the disruption of ports. In particular, skyrocketing shipping prices and fulfillment delays have made it uncertain and costly for businesses sourcing from the Chinese market to make goods available to their customers. The slowdown in the SC has largely been attributed to the resilience of Chinese production and U.S. consumption after the pandemic. While shipping companies significantly cut down their schedules, the early recovery of Chinese production and heavy spending in the United States have continued to overstretch the GSC. This paper synthesizes six articles that have investigated the changes in the Chinese supply chain globally after the pandemic by identifying what they discuss, how they complement or contradict each other, what they fail to discuss, and the emerging themes, patterns, and concepts from the studies.
What they discuss
Barlow et al (2021) describe the implications of the pandemic on international trade through declines in both demand and supply in the public health sector, an impact that drove Chinese manufacturers to start producing personal protective equipment (PPE), respirators, and other medical products to meet public health demands. Focusing on the meat industry in China, Ijaz et al (2021) have discussed the challenges in the meat industry and supply chain in China after the pandemic, tracing the developments since governments directed lockdown restrictions to slow down the rapid spread of the virus. Xu et al (2021) investigate how the transport and logistics sector, including the land freight, ocean freight, air freight in China were impacted by the pandemic, thus affecting the Chinese global SC through increased shipping prices. While these impacts are felt internationally, Barbero et al (2021) study found that bilateral trade for nations that had regional trade agreements before the pandemic and those with identical income levels such as China and the United States were disproportionately affected. Shi et al (2021) highlight the challenges on the Chinese global SC due to the ongoing US-China tensions and the economic shocks due to the pandemic while Song et al (2021) have assessed the impact of the pandemic on the Chinese manufacturing sector in the reconfiguration of the global value chain.
How they complement or contradict each other
The six articles in this analysis complement each other and agree to some extent that the impacts of the pandemic have been felt across the Chinese and global supply chain systems. Neverthelsee, Barbero, et al (2021) single out countries with identical income levels and those that had trade agreements before the pandemic to experience disproportionately negative impacts than others. Xu et al (2021) no...