The marriage of China Merchants Group and Sinotrans, easily the most handsome of the several proposed pairings in Chinese state shipping, may have been in planning for a decade or more. Former company employees feel that Chinese authorities fumbled a chance to bless the union for political reasons when in 2008 they opted instead to push Sinotrans into a disastrous cohabitation with brown-water shipowner Changhang Shipping Corp.
But
