"China Plus One" Strategy In-Depth Analysis: From Slogan to Must-Have Paradigm Shift
"China Plus One"—maintaining China as the core manufacturing base while establishing backup or supplementary capacity in at least one other country—this supply chain strategy term originating in the mid-2010s has undergone a paradigm shift from "nice-to-have" to "must-have" over the past three years. According to Mc Kinsey's 2026 Global Supply Chain Survey, 73% of surveyed multinational manufacturing enterprises have already implemented some form of "China Plus One" strategy, up sharply from 45% in 2022; among those that have not yet implemented, 82% indicated plans to launch within the next two years. The drivers of this trend are multifaceted: geopolitical risk (repeated escalation of U.S.-China trade friction and continued tightening of export controls) is the largest single driver (58% of enterprises cited it as the primary reason); followed by pandemic-exposed single-point dependency vulnerability (32%); then cost optimization considerations (22%, as China's manufacturing wages continue to rise, Southeast Asia's cost attractiveness continues to grow).
In the choice of the "one" in "China Plus One," Vietnam leads by an overwhelming margin—62% of enterprises that have implemented the "China Plus One" strategy chose Vietnam as their preferred destination. Following closely are India (38%, particularly favored by U.S. technology companies, with Apple's India manufacturing initiative as an iconic case), Thailand (28%, with strong appeal in the automotive and electronics sectors), Indonesia (22%, with growing appeal due to market size), and Malaysia (18%, with traditional strengths in semiconductor packaging and testing). Notably, most enterprises are not implementing a strict "One" (i.e., adding only one country), but rather "China Plus N"—dispersing production capacity across multiple Southeast and South Asian countries to further diversify risk and leverage each country's comparative advantages in different industry segments. This "China Plus N" model imposes higher demands on cross-border logistics systems: compared to the simple model of "single-point shipment from China to the world," "China Plus N" entails more complex multi-country, multi-directional, multimodal logistics networks and higher logistics management complexity.
Short-Sea Route Capacity Growth: Infrastructure Upgrades Matching the Relocation Rhythm
The trend of supply chain relocation to Southeast Asia is directly driving capacity expansion on China-Southeast Asia short-sea routes. In H1 2026, total container shipping capacity on Intra-Asia routes grew 15. 8% year-on-year, nearly double the growth rate of global deep-sea routes (Europe, North America) at 8. 2%. This gap reflects the shipping industry's capital allocation tilting toward Intra-Asia routes—carriers recognize that "China Plus One"-driven intra-Asian trade growth is long-term and structural rather than cyclical short-term fluctuation. Specifically, in H1 2026, newly added Intra-Asia capacity totaled approximately 650,000 TEU (from new vessel deliveries and redeployment from deep-sea routes), with about 40% deployed on China-Southeast Asia routes.
Route network optimization by shipping lines is another important trend beyond capacity growth. CNC (Cheng Lie Navigation, the CMA CGM Group's intra-Asia brand) launched three new China-Southeast Asia direct routes in 2026—the North China-Central Vietnam route (connecting Tianjin and Qingdao with Da Nang), the East China-East Indonesia route (connecting Ningbo and Xiamen with Surabaya and Makassar), and the South China-South Philippines route (connecting Shenzhen and Guangzhou with Cagayan de Oro and Davao). A common feature of these new routes is bypassing traditional hub ports (such as Singapore and Hong Kong), establishing direct connections between China's second-tier ports and Southeast Asia's emerging ports. The logic behind this strategy: as Southeast Asian manufacturing spreads from a few hotspot areas (such as around Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok) to more inland and coastal emerging regions, logistics networks also need to evolve from a "hub-and-spoke" model to a "multi-point direct connection" model.
Door-to-Door One-Stop Logistics Services: From Transportation Execution to Supply Chain Collaboration
Cross-border logistics service models are undergoing rapid upgrading from "port-to-port" to "door-to-door" and further to "one-stop supply chain collaboration." Traditional international logistics services center on port-to-port transportation—the shipping line handles the ocean segment from origin port to destination port, while the client handles land transportation, customs clearance, warehousing, and distribution at both ends independently. This model worked well when supply chain structures were simple (China factory → destination country warehouse), but in the "China Plus One" multi-country, multi-node supply chain structure, it exposes serious fragmentation problems: a buyer may need to coordinate simultaneously with China's trucking companies, multiple Southeast Asian countries' respective customs brokers and inland transporters, as well as several ocean carriers for both deep-sea and short-sea routes—with management complexity and error risk growing exponentially.
The core value of door-to-door one-stop logistics services lies in consolidating this fragmented responsibility chain into a single service interface and Service Level Agreement (SLA). Taking Estroute's Southeast Asia one-stop logistics solution as an example: the client only needs to provide one pickup address (e.g., a factory in Ningbo, China) and one or more destination addresses (e.g., a factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and a warehouse in Bangkok, Thailand), and all remaining steps—including China-side trucking and export customs clearance, ocean freight (short-sea/deep-sea), Southeast Asia destination port customs clearance (including certificate of origin application and tariff planning), destination port trucking, and last-mile delivery—are all coordinated and managed by Estroute, with the client tracking real-time status of the entire chain through a single system interface. This integration not only reduces management costs (typically saving 15-25% in logistics management expenses), but more critically, significantly shortens overall logistics lead time—through parallel processing of customs clearance, advance booking, and intelligent routing optimization, the door-to-door one-stop solution can compress the overall logistics time from China to Vietnam factories from the traditional 12-15 days down to 7-9 days.
Dual Customs Clearance Compliance: The "Invisible Moat" That Cannot Be Overlooked in Southeast Asia Logistics
In cross-border logistics, the compliance of "dual customs clearance" (export customs clearance at the origin port and import customs clearance at the destination port) is the core benchmark distinguishing professional logistics service providers from ordinary freight forwarders, especially in the Southeast Asian market. Southeast Asian countries' customs regimes, import licensing requirements, and tariff structures are highly differentiated, and policy updates are frequent—taking Vietnam as an example, between 2025 and 2026, the General Department of Vietnam Customs issued at least six updates on HS code classification rules for three categories of goods: electronic components, textile raw materials, and machinery equipment. For buyers and logistics providers unfamiliar with local regulations, a single customs clearance error—such as HS code misclassification resulting in tariff back payments and fines—can wipe out the profit of an entire shipment.
Key risk points for dual customs clearance compliance include: certificate of origin application and verification (directly affecting tariff preference eligibility under free trade agreements such as RCEP), advance approval of import licenses (many Southeast Asian countries implement import licensing management for specific categories, such as Vietnam for used equipment and Indonesia for electronics), and customs valuation disputes (Southeast Asian countries' customs valuation methods differ from China's, potentially triggering tariff disputes). Estroute maintains local customs clearance teams in each Southeast Asian country—not via agent model but with directly employed staff—ensuring real-time tracking of local customs policy changes, direct communication channels with local customs officials, and rapid response capability for abnormal situations. For enterprises setting up procurement or production nodes in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia for the first time, choosing a logistics service provider with localized dual clearance capabilities is the most effective way to mitigate compliance risks.
New Opportunities in Cross-Border E-Commerce Logistics: The Incremental Market Spawned by Southeast Asia's Digital Economy
Beyond the manufacturing supply chain relocation, Southeast Asia's booming digital economy is creating another high-growth incremental market for cross-border logistics—cross-border e-commerce logistics. According to the 2026 Southeast Asia Digital Economy Report jointly released by Google, Temasek, and Bain, Southeast Asia's e-commerce GMV is expected to reach USD 280 billion in 2026, doubling from USD 131 billion in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 21%. The white-hot competition among the four major platforms—Shopee, Lazada, Tik Tok Shop, and Tokopedia—is driving robust demand for Chinese supply chains: over 60% of physical goods (by SKU) on Southeast Asian e-commerce platforms originate from Chinese suppliers, with this proportion even higher in categories such as fashion, consumer electronics, and home goods.
Cross-border e-commerce logistics and traditional B2B logistics have significantly different demand characteristics, requiring logistics service providers to offer specialized solutions. Typical characteristics of cross-border e-commerce logistics include: high-frequency, small-batch shipments (individual shipment volumes typically range from tens to hundreds of kilograms, rather than traditional B2B full containers or full pallets), high time sensitivity (platforms have strict assessment mechanisms for dispatch and delivery timelines, with delays potentially affecting store ratings and traffic allocation), complex last-mile delivery requirements (needing to cover the "last mile" across Southeast Asian countries, including remote islands and rural areas), and return and reverse logistics processing capacity. Estroute's "Southeast Asia E-Commerce Express" product, tailored for cross-border e-commerce customers, integrates consolidation warehouses (with forward collection centers in Shenzhen, Yiwu, and Guangzhou), scheduled charter flights/consolidated container transport, destination country customs clearance, and last-mile delivery via local courier companies, providing end-to-end transit time of 5-8 days from Chinese factories to Southeast Asian consumers, along with parcel-level real-time tracking and intelligent return processing—helping cross-border e-commerce sellers build competitive moats in logistics speed and service experience beyond product competitiveness.
Conclusion: Logistics Is No Longer "Support" but a Core Competitiveness of Supply Chain Strategy
The trend of supply chain relocation to Southeast Asia will not reverse—it is driven not only by enterprise-level cost optimization and risk diversification motives but also underpinned by macro-level geopolitical landscape changes, deepening regional economic integration (RCEP, CPTPP), and Southeast Asia's own industrialization process. Against this long-term trend, the role of cross-border logistics is undergoing a fundamental transformation: it is no longer a passively responsive "logistical support" but a "strategic weapon" actively shaping supply chain competitiveness. Those who can offer one-stop logistics networks covering major manufacturing nodes across China and Southeast Asia, possess multi-country dual customs clearance compliance capabilities, and provide customized solutions for different customer profiles (large manufacturers, mid-sized brands, cross-border e-commerce sellers) will occupy the most favorable competitive position in this supply chain restructuring. It is based on this judgment that Estroute has systematically invested in the local logistics infrastructure and operational capabilities in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia over the past two years, committed to becoming the most reliable and efficient strategic logistics partner for clients in the Southeast Asia market.
Back to News List