The Domestic Marine Management System


The main tasks and characteristics of our country¡¯s marine management

It is the prerequisite for the establishment and adjustment of the marine management system to make the tasks and characteristics of the marine management clear and definite. The following is the tasks and characteristics of our country¡¯s marine management :

1.The range of the sea area administrated is large and the task of defending the marine rights and interests is arduous. The East and the South parts of the mainland are border on the Bohai, East China Sea and South China Sea, and the East part of Taiwan Province is border on the Pacific Ocean. Bohai is our inland sea, therefore, without the matter of delimiting the boundary of sea area with the neighbor countries, however, there is still a complicated task of delimiting the boundary of sea area with the neighbor countries or those countries which are separate from China and thus defending the marine rights and interests.

2.The marine environment of our country needs much more effectively administrating because it is suffering the pollution destruction to a certain degree. Tens of thousands of enterprises are situated along the coastal zone and over 400 million people resident in the coastal provinces, autonomous region and the municipalities directly under the Central government, as the result of these factors that hundreds of millions of tons of domestic and industrial sewage and rubbish are emitted directly or indirectly into the sea.

3.A large number of people are concentrating in the limited coastal zones and most of them are engaged in the marine fishery production. With the rapid growth of population , it is hard to have such situation as the growth of the fishing boats and fishnets under control. The inshore fishery resources are suffering the severe destruction, which leads to the result that the production of the fishery drops by a big margin and some breeds cannot form a fishing season.

4.With the increase of the vessels and the platforms day by day, it is an arduous task concerning the marine security supervision and the salvage.

5.More and more obligations about the regulations and conventions for us to fulfill with regard to the marine affairs

The institutions in charge of the marine affairs

The marine management have began since 1950s in our country. Over a long period of time, we adopted a pattern of a decentralized marine management for the traditional marine industries mainly by means of professional combination of the politics and enterprises, formed the management system on the same basis. The aquatic institutions and the transportation institutions at that time acted as the economic leading bodies of marine fishery, marine transportation and administrative institutions simultaneously. Since 1970s, because the marine environmental management was proposed in a program and the sea fishery administration, the security administration of marine transportation became more and more arduous, the marine administrative system changed. The institutions which were in charge of the marine affairs are listed as the following,

  • the State Oceanic Administration;
  • the Water Security Supervision Institutions in the Ministry of Communications;
  • the fishery administration and fishing harbors supervision institutions in Agriculture Department;
  • the institutions involving the marine management in the Ministry of Public Security include the frontier police stations, the waterside inspection stations of public security, the marine patrol parties of armed police, which are mainly responsible for the marine public security, exit and entry of a country by sea, the task to coordinate with the Custom to inspect the smuggling, etc.

The goal of reforming our present marine management system

Just as the other management systems, the marine management system needs an urgent reformation. The present marine management system was established for the purpose of fitting in with the needs of the traditional marine cause, thus has not met the demand of modern development of marine cause.

The main problems existing in the current management are, 1) All the marine management institutions were established in the traditional political and economic system of China, with the characteristics of ¡°Each one managing one district, each one belonging to the management system respectively, each one owning the direct access to the highest authorities¡±, so it is hard to do the coordination work; 2) There still does not exist a clear- cut division of labor about certain new tasks, which causes that sometimes various institutions consider the same duty as its own and strive for the jurisdiction and sometimes they do not administrate a certain work; 3) It is hard to have the reconstruction of law enforcement institutions and equipment under control.

The reformation of our economic and our political systems are on the way and the reformation of marine management system is one part of them. The principal targets are:

1.Meeting the national new political system and economic system and forming a relatively centralized institution and an effective coordination system. It won¡¯t work if China separates all the marine management institutions from those operational departments to establish an all-round marine management organization. However, it would be possible if the security management of the marine vessels is centralized into one system, the management tasks in the sea area are centralized into one institution, the management of the comprehensive research programs concerning the sea area is united. The effect would be better than that when decentralized.

2.Meeting the demand of modern marine management, and establishing a multifunctional marine law enforcement institutions to defend the marine rights and interests and to protect the marine resources and marine environment. From the overseas experience, a good marine law enforcement institution can not only hold the post of many marine law enforcement tasks of the marine laws and regulations to serve several marine management institutions, but also take on the responsibility of the public good cause which must be conducted by the country.

3.Aiming at the marine management standard of the developed countries and improving the management methods and technological methods. To a great extend, the content of the modern marine management is mainly dealing with the affairs concerning foreign countries, so the management should adopt the advanced technology and the international methods which are in common use.