China’s Blue Economy: A State Project of Modernisation

AuthorWolfram Dressler,Annie Wu,Kathleen Walsh,Kate Barclay,Sallie Lau,Tabitha Mallory,Michael Fabinyi
Published date01 June 2021
Date01 June 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/1070496521995872
Subject MatterArticles
Article
The Journal of Environment &
Development
2021, Vol. 30(2) 127148
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1070496521995872
journals.sagepub.com/home/jed
Chinas Blue Economy: A
State Project of
Modernisation
Michael Fabinyi
1
, Annie Wu
1
, Sallie
Lau
2
, Tabitha Mallory
3
, Kate Barclay
1
,
Kathleen Walsh
4,
, and Wolfram
Dressler
5
Abstract
The blue economy is a globally emerging concept for ocean governance that seeks to
tap the economic potential of the oceans in environmentally sustainable ways. Yet,
understanding and implementation of particular visions of the blue economy in specif‌ic
regions diverge according to national and other contexts. Drawing on a discourse
analysis of Chinese language documents, this article assesses how the blue economy has
been conceptualised in Chinese state policy and discourse. Part of a state ideology and
practice of modernisation that is def‌ined in terms of rejuvenation under a strong state,
the blue economy in China is seen as an opportunity to promote modernisation from
overlapping economic, geopolitical and ecological perspectives and actions. Chinas
distinctive model for the blue economy presents emerging challenges for global ocean
governance.
Keywords
China, blue economy, discourse analysis, modernisation, marine resources
1
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
2
School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
3
China Ocean Institute and University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
4
National Security Affairs Department, US Naval War College, Newport, RI, USA
5
School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Any views are solely those of the author and do not ref‌lect off‌icial US policy
Corresponding Author:
Michael Fabinyi, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123,
Broadway, New South Wales 2007, Australia.
Email: michael.fabinyi@uts.edu.au
Introduction
Globally, academic and policy discussions surrounding the emergent blue economy
have rapidly proliferated in recent years (Bennett et al., 2019;Satiz ´
abal et al., 2020;
Silver et al., 2015;Voyer et al., 2018). Diverse actors are seeking to tap economic
possibilities and reconf‌igure the institutions that govern access and use of marine
resources and coastal spaces (Brent et al., 2020). At the broadest level, the blue
economy is envisaged as a governance regime that links economic growth and en-
vironmental sustainability. This vision has been promoted by major global institutions
including the World Bank (2017) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the
United Nations (2018). At the same time, the concept is increasingly critiqued for its
emphasis on an economic approach that potentially marginalises weaker stakeholders,
such as small-scale f‌ishers (Bennett et al., 2019;Brent et al., 2020). However, there
remains much variation over how the blue economy is interpreted, represented and
implemented in different regions and geographical contexts (Voyer et al., 2018). Based
on a critical discourse analysis, this article describes and analyses how the idea of the
blue economy is being conceptualised and implemented in China.
We argue that understanding the emergence of the blue economy in China matters
for two main reasons. Firstly, the sheer scale and signif‌icance of China in economic,
demographic and geopolitical terms means decisions taken in China about ocean
governance have global impacts. As China continues to take an increasingly active
presence in the worlds oceans through resource extraction, aid, trade and in-
tergovernmental fora, Chinese ideas about the blue economy will have increasing
political weight in the future (Crona et al., 2020). Secondly, the emergence of the blue
economy in China is signif‌icant because the ways in which the Chinese state conceives
of economic use and governance of the oceans are quite different from the blue
economy ideas of global institutions. In contrast to prevalent conceptions of the blue
economy that link environmental sustainability with economic development (see
Cisneros-Montemayor, 2019 for a recent review), Chinas conceptions of the blue
economy revolve around how it can contribute to a state-centric vision of modern-
isation, which includesbut subordinatesenvironmental sustainability among
several other concerns. We argue that in order to reduce misunderstandings and
minimise conf‌lict, ocean policymakers need to better understand the bases on which
Chinas blue economy is emerging and its likely trajectories.
Because of the high degree of state control in China (Zhao, 2016), understanding the
role of the state and its relationship to the blue economy in China is necessary. Scholars
now describe Chinas economy as a version of state capitalism, where the state takes
aleading role in fostering and guiding capital accumulation(McNally, 2012: 744; see
also Naughton and Tsai, 2015;Zheng & Huang, 2018). In China, state capitalism is
characterised by the strong role of the state in guiding economic policy and by the
strong role of state-owned enterprises and is closely linked to economic nationalism,
where economic power is closely tied to national power (Belesky & Lawrence, 2019;
McNally, 2012). Although there is much literature written in Chinain the Chinese
language for a largely Chinese audienceEnglish language studies on Chinese ocean
128 The Journal of Environment & Development 30(2)

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