Cultural Dimension in China’s Ocean Policy

There are a lot of ocean issues unresolved in China due to historical, geographic, technological, recognizant and other reasons. In order to resolve these ocean issues, China has put forward concrete ocean policies including giving priority to settle ocean disputes through political means, taking other party’s stance into consideration to propose the principle of Sovereignty Belonging to China, Setting Aside Dispute and Seeking Joint Development, the basic policy of cooperatively formulating rules, controlling crisis and sharing resources, insisting on dual-track train of thoughts and coming up with the idea of Harmonious Ocean. They contain ample cultural elements and embody a characteristic of Chinese Culture, i.e. Valuing Harmony. Meanwhile, these ocean policies of China are not only based on international law, but also proved by practice to be very useful and conform to the international ocean development trend. Therefore, international society shall positively support China’s ocean policies to facilitate China to play a bigger role in setting up ocean platform, strengthening ocean development, offering public goods and other fields to make more contribution to protecting ocean safety and order, realizing harmonious co-existence between human beings and the sea, in order to ensure China’s sovereign and territorial integrity, maintain the system of international law and international order established after World War II, which is the significant obligation and due responsibility of international society.