from the full article:
"Evergreen, the builder of the aircraft, is a joint venture of EVA Air and General Electric and part of Taiwan's Evergreen Group."
Evergreen is a Taiwaneese company. It is the largest international sea shipping company. So using airplanes is a natural extension.
Another way to get small valuable goods from over there, to over here.
The largest EXPORTs from the US today are EMPTY ship cargo containers, and scrap steel.
Note they started with a USED Boeing plane (perhaps just short of scrap aluminum?).
Not that old. They start with 747-400's that are just about to need D-checks and would be in need of interior refurbishment. I think one of the China Airlines 747-400's being used struck it's tail during a landing. The fact that the cargo section will not be pressurized makes it an ideal candidate to be converted.
It is the oldest of the classic 747-100/200/300 aircraft that are best suited for conversion to beer cans. The 747-400 has a two-man digital cockpit which is being heavily upgraded for the 747-400LCF's. The 747 being a long ranged aircraft, has fewer cycles than shorter ranged aircraft like 737's with equivalent numbers of hours. It's much cheaper for Boeing to acquire used 747's than to build new ones for conversion to the LCF.