Exporters of Chinese goods to Europe are scrambling to shift cargo shipments from ocean to the China—Europe rail land bridge, as ship slots become scarcer due to capacity cancelations from container lines in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Geopolitical instability is now cited as the top risk to both global and domestic economies in our latest McKinsey Global Survey on economic conditions. 1 That’s the consensus among executives worldwide, who have cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a leading risk to growth for the past two years.