The mechanism described in the article is that Asian economies are business as usual, but European and American activity has slowed because of the pandemic, so there's lots of demand to ship from Asia, but nothing coming back.<p>This makes sense, but at a macro level it can't have <i>too</i> large an effect on shipping rates: at worst, you need to pay for a round trip to bring back the empty container, instead of a one way journey. A 100% increase, which is a lot in most contexts, but oil prices (the other main marginal cost in shipping) fluctuate by that much three years out of ten.<p>Container shipping is so cheap these days that I don't see this effect killing the margins of many businesses.