The Libra has been on something called the Pearl River Express route for at least a year.
For the unfamiliar, The Pearl River forms the delta and bay that are anchored by Hong Kong, Macao, and the former city of Canton, now called Guangzhou. This is the area that the Middle Kingdom first opened to outsiders in the 1800’s, or was forced to open, and the site of the Opium Wars. It was the site of the major trade with China and the outside world until it was closed down by communism in 1949. It was subsequently where that trade was officially reopened again after the death of Mao in 1976 in a harbor on the bay called Chiwan by Deng Xiaoping, in 1979, creating the Pearl River Free Trade Zone, which began the colossal machine that people now call the factory of the world, centered in Guangdong Province, the province surrounding the PEarl River Delta, but now all over China, essentially its economy based on growth through exports. That whole huge China trade thing, when it comes down to it, is about manufactured goods leaving this area, and that is what the Pearl River Express is all about for CMA CGM. Whereas in the times of Canton, they left by hemp and reed basket, wooden and bamboo box, and cask, today they use the world standard, as ubiquitous as fast food and plastic garbage, the Shipping Container. The route is a circle, starting with about 5 Chinese ports and Hong Kong (now again a Chinese port), crossing the Pacific to Long Beach, then up to Oakland, and usually carrying a lighter load back to China. On my journey, instead of passing through the gap between the Philippians and Japan, we went north to Nakhodka, on the Pacific Coast of Russia about 50 crow miles from Vladivostok, to refuel on some Siberian Bunker oil, about 1.6 million dollars worth, which took us a few days off route, and through the gap between the large Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. some storms in the North Pacific, kept us from going on the great circle route through the Aleutians, costing us a half day of sailing. We instead ‘Ram’s Headed’, I think they called it, and set a direct route of about 273 for that gap in the Japanese Islands for our first 12 days en route.