Planet China : Eleventh in a series about how Beijing’s trillion-dollar development plan is reshaping the globe—and the natural world.

CHANCAY, Peru—The elevator doors leading to the fifth-floor control center open like stage curtains onto a theater-sized screen.

This “Operations Productivity Dashboard” instantaneously displays a battery of data: vehicle locations, shipping times, entry times, loading data, unloading data, efficiency statistics.

Most striking, though, are the bold lines arcing over the dashboard’s deep-blue Pacific—digital streaks illustrating the routes that lead thousands of miles across the ocean, from this unassuming city, to Asia’s biggest ports.

Chancay sits at a curve along the ocean, about 50 miles north of Lima. Until recently, it was best known for its mediev

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