A Research On China’s Government Marine Consciousness Change

Taking the government work reports of China’s State Council in1954-2013andthe government work reports of China’s coastal provinces, autonomous region andmunicipalities since the21stcentury as the object of text analysis, the frequency andkind of the ocean-related terms were counted with Excel2007to find a change inChina’s central governments’ marine consciousness. This paper will explain factorsinfluencing the change of China’s central government’s marine consciousness withimportant historical events, and show the terms of maritime planning features fromthe coastal local governments work reports to illustrate their local characteristicsduring implementing the central government’s maritime strategy. The hypotheses ofthis study:1.the change of the frequency and kind of the ocean-related terms of thegovernment work reports can reflect the connotation and characteristics of its marineconsciousness;2.the marine consciousness of China’s central government is growing;3.the terms of China’s coastal local governments’ maritime career planning show theirfeatures.With the point that consciousness conveying is carried by language and the termis the basic unit of language as core theoretical support, combining the intuitivestatistic results with the theoretical evidence of the philosophical relationship betweenthe matter and consciousness, this study suggests that there shows significantdifference in the connation and characteristics of marine consciousness duringdifferent periods, and the marine consciousness of China’s central government inevery period is created in specific context of the state of objective existence of theocean and how human beings’ cognition of the values in the ocean’s component parts.China’s central government’s marine consciousness experienced changes during theperiod from1954to2013, and the changes are as follows:1. From protecting thesecurity of the land and the adjacent sea by naval construction and force deploymenton the coast and the offshore sea, to the modern sea defense consciousness featuringactive defense for independent sovereignty and ocean territorial integrity; thedynamics of the change of sea defense consciousness is the Taiwan Strait issue, theisland dispute and the international disputes over the jurisdiction over the sea waterand the development of mineral and ocean passage resources attached to thesovereignty of islands.2. From the weak marine resources consciousness dependingon land and water conservancy to provide raw materials for the continental agricultureand industry, to the value-claiming marine resources consciousness of the overall development of the fishery resources, the exploration and exploitation of oceanicmineral resources and the development and utilization of the beaches resources, andthen to the sustainable ocean resources consciousness characterized by reasonabledevelopment and utilization of resources and protection of resources and ecosystems;this shift is directly related to the Great Chinese Famine, the USA mastering thecapability of exploring and exploiting marine oil, domestic scientific research abilityand the degree of the international community’s cognition of the coordinateddevelopment between the population, resources and environment.3. From theconsciousness away from the sea with the construction of transportation network andindustry transferred to the inland for the coastal location vulnerable to external forces,to the modern marine economy consciousness highlighting ocean transportation andinshore industry with the aid of the coastal advantages; the reform and opening-uppolicies support the developing and opening situation of coastal areas in the aspect ofeconomic system and infrastructure construction.4. From nothing, to the formationof marine environmental consciousness; the production of the marine environmentalconsciousness is closely related to the fact of key sea areas being polluted and thestate environmental protection policy.5. From the sense of the transportation acrossthe ocean can be achieved only by the surface carriage, to the plan for the landvehicles travelling over the sea by constructing cross-sea bridges; and from thecognition of ocean obstructing the connection between the lands, to the design ofsubmarine cables laying across the sea for the islands off the coast sharing the telecomresources with the land; this turning point depends on the growth of scientific researchability.6. Different from earlier, forming a more comprehensive marineadministrative management consciousness of supervising the activities of developingand using the ocean under the guidance of scientific concept of development. Thefactors influencing China’s central government’s marine consciousness can besummarized as the relationship between party and government with Chinesecharacteristics, the relationship between production and demand, international gamefor peace and development, and the language mechanisms of the reports. Thecoastal local governments proceed from reality to implement the central government’smaritime strategy, showing local characteristics of their own.