ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines China’s detailed plans on how it aims to achieve its goal of becoming a maritime Great Power by 2050 and the role that the Blue Economy will play in these efforts. The chapter explains how China can today already be considered a maritime power according to all of the traditional measures of maritime power (naval capability, coastal and other maritime law enforcement agencies, maritime industrial development—shipbuilding, fishing, aquaculture, energy, shipping, marine services, etc.—and maritime infrastructure). The chapter then spells out other vital, if perhaps more “soft” forms of power, such as diplomacy and economic, industrial, scientific, technological, and informational (including cyber) powers, that together comprise geostrategic dimensions of maritime power in the 21st century and the ways in which China’s development of the Blue Economy is meant to advance these non-traditional measures of maritime power.
