Readers will be forgiven if they missed the news about the formation of Zhejiang Province Port Investment Company and of Zhejiang Port Services Group in August 2015, or if a month later, they read about the integration of Ningbo and Zhoushan ports into the provincial entity but did not question why.

Zhoushan, the township off the coast of Zhejiang province is an archipelago around the large island of Zhoushan in the East China Sea with some very large ports and shipyards sitting on some relatively small rocks.