Following a major earthquake in 1995, Kobe fell from sixth position to 17th in 1997 (Chang, 2000) as Busan and Kaohsiung expanded to absorb transhipment container traffic, which later transferred to Chinese ports (Yap and Lam, 2006) including Dalian, Qingdao, Tianjin, Shanghai and Shenzhen which compete to be hub ports.