Reading the history of shipping, unions played a huge role in the slower transition from labor-intensive general shipping to containerized shipping.

multiple steps to get goods near a ship in a warehouse, prepared for the ship, manually loaded and packed, and more nonsense became just: drive the containers to the dock and load them when the ship showed up.

I probably read this the wrong way around. I thought the question was about how the huge Chinese unions are involved in the nation's technological ascendancy. Which I really would like to learn more about!

It's a factor but it's also true of non-union jobs. Politicians are against any short-term pain because they're afraid they won't be elected. But it's just a part of the culture, US voters don't like it either (even if they're not the ones facing potential job loss)