Foreword

When the vol.4 of Ocean Law, Society and Management comes, we hear a call to build strong marine country from our capital Beijing, which exactly makes us excited. Hu Jintao has mentioned clearly in the report of the 18th CPC National Congress that we should protect our national marine rights and interests, and should“build strong marine country”.

Building strong marine country is a dream of all the Chinese people, because our national humiliation since 1840 came exactly from ocean brought by colonization since we had no coast defense or no powerful coast defense at that time. Today, although it is already quite a long time since we said goodbye to the time of semifeudal semicolony, we still cannot prove ourselves to be strong enough in the field of ocean.

Building strong marine country also meets the need of protecting our marine interests as well as our marine sovereignty, sovereignty rights and jurisdiction. All that Philippines has done on our Huangyan Island and its surrounding waters area, and that Japan has done on our Diaoyu Islands, and that Vietnam has done on our Spratly Islands and that the countries around the South China Sea have broken“The Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea”and to explore for the oil and gas resources belonging to the sea area of our country are testing our marine power.

Building strong marine country is also a condition for China to fulfill international obligation. China is undoubtly an important member of international social and should certainly perform as a big country for the prosperity of international society and for the construction of international social order in the field of pirate attack and other maritime incidents. China should participate in the construction of fair marine order and peaceful marine environment.

China should be a strong marine country, and researchers should think about how to build our strong marine country as well as those theoretic questions and practical questions concerned with the building of strong marine country. However, we insist that what should be done first is to make clear the difference between the slogan of“building strong marine country”and the Maritime Power strategy.

The strategy of strengthening nation with ocean interpreted by researchers could be concluded into three expressions as follows: First, using a series of construction policies to achieve the goal of“building strong marine country”;Second, having ocean as the approach to achieve the goal of strengthening our nation; Third, building our country to be a strong marine country by some construction policies so as to achieve the goal of strengthening our nation. Obviously，“building strong marine country”does not include the second and third expression. It means that“strong marine country”is at most a goal of our country, but not the approach to achieve the basic national goal of strengthening our country. Therefore，“strong marine country”could not be the basic national strategy of our country today, because our basic goal is to make our country to be prosperous and strong. Then, the slogan of“building strong marine country”does not necessarily include the meaning of strategic arrangement, just as“building harmonious socialist society”，“building good-neighbourly and friendly relations with nearby countries”and“promoting physical culture and building up the people's health”. Strategy is not simply a slogan, but should includes at least determined goal and the strategic arrangement to achieve this goal.

A country could of course take the policy of governmental party as a certain strategic goal, and provide national power to achieve the goal. But even in the case of this, the strategy of building strong marine country still just means having“strong marine country”as one goal among a series of national strategic goals.“Building strong marine country”will not become the basic strategic goal of our country taking the place of other goals such as the“three-step strategy”, but just be used to ask for more fiscal funds for navy construction.

It's obvious that China should not change the process of our modernization construction because of navy construction. Strong navy construction should never influence the implementation of the“three-step strategy”.

We need to build our strong marine country calmly, and to work for our marine business practically, including marine economic, ocean politics, ocean legislation, marine technology, marine environment protection, marine culture, ocean society and other marine business. To build a strong country, we should first have all kinds of business of our country develop healthily, so as to support a strong country effectively. In this meaning, we really need to do something for our marine business practically instead of being interested in big slogans such as the strategy of strengthening nation with ocean.

Actually, the writers of the vol. 4 of Ocean Law, Society and Management have done something useful for the development of marine business, including coastal wetland management（Mei Hong，“The Characteristics of the Legal System of Australian Coastal Wetland Management”）, delimit of marine dumping area（Lv Jianhua，“The United States Marine Dumping Area Delimit Principle and Its Significance to China”）, construction of the ecological Environment in Yellow River Delta efficient ecological economic zone（Shi Jun，“The Ecological Environment Construction Countermeasure Research of Yellow River Delta High-Efficiency Ecological Economy Zone”）, the social participation countermeasures of the marine ecological security（Yang Zhenjiao, Luo Lingyun, ＆Wang Juan，“The Social Participation Countermeasures of the Marine Ecological Security—Take the Japanese Nuclear Leak Accident for Example”）, direct economic loss assessment of the oil spill（Li Li, Xiaohua Wang, ＆ Harvinder Sidhu，“Direct Economic Loss Assessment of the Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico”）, regional ocean governance of the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem（Ming Yu ＆ Ye Yuan,“Strengthening Regional Ocean Governance to Protect Marine Environment: A Case Study of the Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Project”）, prevention from marine alien species' invasion（Bai Jiayu，“Research on the Legislation System about Prevention from Marine Alien Species' Invasion in China”）, jurisdiction of public security within non-territorial jurisdictional waters（Ruan Zhigang，“Discussion on China's Jurisdiction of Public Security within Nonterritorial Jurisdictional Waters”）, China's coming to the Arctic（Sun Kai，“Different Interpretations by Foreigners of China's Coming to the Arctic—Research based on Three Recent Reports”）, assessment of Vietnam's maritime awareness（Liu Jiayi,“The National Culture of“Heading for the Ocean”—Assessment of Vietnam's Maritime Awareness”）, ocean legal right dispute of the Northeast Asia region（Shen Haitao ＆ Li Yongqiang，“The Strategic Game towards China in the Ocean Legal Right Dispute of the Northeast Asia Region”）, marine soft power（Wang Qi＆ Liu Jianshan，“Marine Soft Power: Definition and Interpretation”）, the application of crime of environmental pollution（Li Zhan，“The Application of Crime of Environmental Pollution in the Marine Oil Spill Events”）, the comparison between ocean culture and mainland culture（Ning Bo，“Further Comparison Understanding on Ocean Culture and Mainland Culture”）, the discussion on the moral metaphor in the Chinese marine poetry（Ji Anxian，“The Extended Moral Metaphor in Ocean Culture: An Exploration of Moral Education Function in the Chinese Ocean Poetry”）. My student and I have also done something practically to look for the ocean society（Xu Xiangmin ＆ Song Fumin,“Looking for the Ocean Society”）.

Xu Xiangmin

2012－12－12

Qingdao