Gareth Leather and Mark Williams at Capital Economics discuss some of these factors in a recent note. For example, whereas the cost of shipping a container from China to Europe has risen fivefold since Covid hit, the cost of shipping it within Asia has only doubled. When Covid prompted factory closures, Asian companies had a greater choice of alternative suppliers within the region, meaning less disruption to supply. In the automobile sector, South Korea and China were able to make sure that domestic producers had priority access to scarce semiconductors. There is double-digit inflation for automobiles in the US. In East Asia, prices have barely risen.