ABSTRACT
KEVIN X. LI†, BINGYING DONG‡ and LING ZHU‡* †Department of International Logistics, Chung-Ang University, Republic of Korea ‡Department of Logistics and Maritime Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
1. Introduction China is a coastal country with a long coastline. It has a coastline of more than 18 000 kilometres and an island coastline of over 14 000 kilometres. The mainland of China is flanked to the east and south by the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Since the early 1980s, marine environmental deterioration has occurred in China with rapid economic development and population growth (Wang et al. 2006). A whole array of measures to strengthen marine environmental protection has been adopted by the Chinese government in the past 20 years (State Council of the People’s Republic of China 2006). The China Ocean Agenda 21 was published in 1996, setting forth basis, objectives, principles and counter-measures for ensuring sustainable ocean development. Besides, the legal system of marine environmental protection has been gradually established by the participation of a number of international conventions and promulgation of a series of domestic legislations. Despite all the efforts and progress made so far, the environmental situation in the coastal marine zone is still serious in China (Wang 2006).
