Thursday, October 22, 2026
The news that moves freight
Ocean Oct 22, 2026 · 7 min read

Typhoon Champi: Taiwan warnings, Zhejiang Level III, track bends toward Kyushu

Zhejiang raises its sea alert as Champi bends north. Zhejiang’s Maritime Safety Administration, the shipping regulator for Ningbo-Zhoushan’s waters, raised its typhoon response from Level IV to Level III at 08:00 on 21 October. Taiwan issued a sea warning that night. In our view, the forecast turn toward Kyushu is not an all-clear. China’s weather centre still expects landfall on Taiwan’s east coast around Saturday. In 2021, Shanghai’s port halted some operations for Typhoon Chanthu even after the Global Times reported it “won’t cross the coast”. Forwarders should hold buffers on East China cut-offs. Our call: Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan terminals suspend at least part of their operations for 12 hours or more between Friday night 23 October and Sunday 25 October.

Champi may miss Shanghai. Ningbo’s regulator is not waiting to find out.

At 08:00 on Wednesday 21 October, Zhejiang’s Maritime Safety Administration raised its typhoon emergency response from Level IV to Level III. The MSA is the government body that controls ship movements and safety in the province’s waters. Those waters include Ningbo-Zhoushan, the world’s busiest port by tonnage, at 1.4 billion tons in 2025, according to Maritime Executive. By 10:00 the same morning, 36 passenger ferry routes in Wenzhou, Taizhou and Zhoushan had been suspended and 223 offshore construction projects along the coast had been halted, Bastille Post reported.

Late that night, Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued a sea warning for Typhoon Champi. It expected to add a land warning on Thursday afternoon.

Champi has been tracking north-west across the Western Pacific all week as the strongest storm of the year, and Zhoushan has been in the cone of possible paths. What is new is a forecast bend to the north, toward Japan’s Kyushu island, on Saturday.

Our view is simple. The northward turn helps Taiwan, but it does not clear East China’s ports for the weekend. China’s authorities are tightening their response, not easing it. Forwarders should plan as if Ningbo and Shanghai lose part of the weekend.

Where the storm is, and why forecasters disagree

At 2 p.m. on Wednesday, the CWA put Champi about 910 km east-southeast of Eluanbi, Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving north-west at 19 km/h, Focus Taiwan reported. Maximum sustained winds eased slightly to 209 kph from 216 kph, the Taipei Times said. The storm’s radius could grow to about 300 km as it gets closer.

The CWA expects Taiwan to feel the worst on Friday and Saturday. CWA forecaster Chang Cheng-chuan said the storm may move toward Kyushu on Saturday, and that warnings could be lifted as early as Saturday afternoon, according to the Taipei Times.

China’s forecasters see it differently. The National Meteorological Centre expects Champi to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast around Saturday as a strong typhoon, SCMP reported on Wednesday afternoon.

A third outlook came from Japan earlier in the week. On 19 October, forecaster Weathernews expected the storm to pass near the Sakishima Islands, the southern end of Okinawa prefecture, between 23 October and the morning of 24 October.

Three forecasters, three slightly different tracks. That is normal two or three days out. But it means nobody should treat the Kyushu turn as settled. A storm that curves late can still push strong winds and high seas across the East China Sea toward the Zhejiang coast.

What China has switched on

China’s emergency responses run on a four-step scale. Level I is the most serious. Level IV is the lowest, which Bastille Post described as “the lowest in China’s four-tier system”. So Zhejiang’s maritime regulator has moved one step up the ladder, to the second-lowest level.

That matters more than the number suggests. The MSA is the body that tells ships where they can and cannot go. Maritime authorities also told vessels to keep close contact with shore, track the storm, and leave likely impact areas early, Bastille Post reported.

Fujian, to the south, started a Level IV typhoon response at 11:00 on Wednesday. Its flood-control headquarters told coastal authorities to “fully implement all prevention measures”. Local forecasters expected Champi to enter Fujian’s typhoon warning zone around noon on Thursday. Force 8 to 9 winds on the Beaufort scale were already hitting coastal waters and main fishing grounds, with gusts of force 9 to 11 in some areas.

Nationally, the China Meteorological Administration issued a Level IV typhoon emergency response, Xinhua reported. Photos with that report showed an unmanned patrol boat at a fishing harbour in Daishan County, Zhoushan, and fishing boats berthed at Shitang in Wenling.

Airports are on watch too. Aviation data platform VariFlight listed Ningbo Lishe, Hangzhou Xiaoshan, Shanghai Pudong, Shanghai Hongqiao, Wenzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen as potentially affected, SCMP reported. No large-scale delays or cancellations had been announced when it published.

Taiwan and Japan go first

Taiwan is already seeing cuts. China Airlines cancelled six Taiwan to Okinawa flights for Thursday, the Taipei Times reported. Tigerair Taiwan cancelled its own Okinawa flights, and Uni Air and Mandarin Airlines cut domestic island services, Focus Taiwan said. EVA Air and Starlux said their flights were unchanged. EVA warned that some Taiwan to Japan services could be affected in the coming days.

At sea, the Maritime and Port Bureau suspended several ferry routes on Thursday, including Keelung to Lienchiang and Kaohsiung to Magong. The Kinmen to Xiamen service stops from 8:30 a.m. on Thursday. Large waves are forecast from Thursday through Saturday along the coasts around Keelung, the east coast, the Hengchun Peninsula and Penghu, the Taipei Times reported. Heavy rain is possible in northern mountain areas on Friday.

For forwarders, we think the passenger flight cuts matter more than they look. Much Taiwan to Japan air cargo flies in the holds of passenger planes, so a cancelled flight can strand freight as well as people. These are short routes, and rebooking onto the next day’s flight is usually possible, but space will be tight while airlines clear their passengers first. If the Kyushu track holds, Japanese ports and airports in Okinawa and Kyushu move into the firing line over the weekend.

What happened last time

The best guide is Typhoon Chanthu in September 2021. Shanghai’s Yangshan deep-water port suspended operations, and terminal operators at Ningbo-Zhoushan slowed or suspended work on the evening of 12 September, Port Technology reported. Ningbo’s Meidong terminal had suspended some container operations from the Friday, and major wharves at Zhoushan had stopped since the Saturday afternoon, Al Jazeera reported.

The key detail: at the time, the state-owned Global Times reported that “the typhoon won’t cross the coast”, citing meteorological experts, Al Jazeera noted. The ports shut anyway. Chinese terminals stop cranes and move ships out on wind and wave forecasts, not on whether the eye makes landfall.

A year later, in September 2022, Shanghai and Ningbo prepared to halt operations again ahead of Typhoon Muifa, Bloomberg reported. It was the region’s second major storm that month.

This year has already shown how long the tail can be. Ports around Shanghai closed from 11 to 13 July for a storm, Maritime Executive reported in August. Afterwards they returned to about 172,000 TEU a day (TEU means twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard container measure), but a large backlog remained and ships reported a shortage of berths. When Typhoon Dolphin approached in early August, the Zhoushan and Ningbo complex reportedly stopped operations, the same report said. Ningbo-Zhoushan handled more than 43 million TEU in 2025.

What forwarders should do this week

Our reading for the next ten days:

  • Taiwan, Thursday to Saturday. Expect delays at Keelung and around Taipei, mainly from waves and rain. Keep shippers’ expectations wide for air cargo to Japan.
  • Ningbo and Shanghai, Friday to Sunday. Assume a partial stop. Move cut-offs (the last time a container can be delivered to the terminal for a given sailing) forward where you can. Do not let export boxes sit on a truck waiting for a gate that may close.
  • Japan, Saturday onward. If Champi tracks to Kyushu, calls at Naha and Kyushu ports could slip. Check feeder services, the small ships that link regional ports with main-line hubs.
  • The week of 26 October. Even a short stop breaks carrier rotations. Ships that wait out the storm arrive late at the next port. Carriers often skip a call to get back on schedule. That pushes boxes onto the next sailing.
  • Rates. A short weather stop rarely moves spot rates on its own. But in a year where Shanghai already ran a backlog in July, a weekend stop on top of late-October volumes will tighten space for a few weeks. Keep quotes short-dated.

Also watch the airports. If Pudong or Ningbo Lishe cut flights over the weekend, air freight from East China will queue at the same time ocean freight is waiting at the quay.

Our call

First, Shanghai and Ningbo-Zhoushan container terminals will suspend at least part of their operations for 12 hours or more between Friday night 23 October and Sunday 25 October. That will happen even if Champi stays offshore. The Level III step-up by Zhejiang’s maritime regulator, and the 2021 Chanthu precedent, are why we hold this call despite the Kyushu turn.

Second, at least one major carrier will announce a skipped Shanghai or Ningbo call in the week of 26 October.

Third, waiting times at Yangshan will not be back to normal before mid-November.

If Champi swings well east of Taiwan on Friday and Zhejiang steps back down to Level IV before then, we will be wrong on the first call. That is the signal to watch.

Sources