Marine ecological security shelter in China: Concept, policy framework, mechanism and implementation obstacles

Building a marine ecological security shelter (MESS) has become the main strategy to adapt marine ecological threats in China. As China's marine policy lacks a robust framework document, it is necessary to consider whether the policy system can effectively support the construction of MESS. However, the linkage between the construction measures of MESS and related policies is not clear. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the concept of MESS and its connection with policy, by adopting the policy content analysis method to analyze the evolution process of MESS-related policy system. The legislative shortcomings and implementation obstacles of the MESS-related policy system are then summarized and discussed. The results show that from 1981 to 2021 the MESS-related policy system has been continuously improved. However, the policy system's support and guarantee capacity for building MESS still needs to be improved. (1) Due to the lack of basic laws and special laws, the coordination among governance subjects and among policies lacks legislative guarantee. (2) The construction of MESS continues the inter-regional and inter-department administrative barriers in collaborative governance of marine environment. To establish an effective collaborative governance model, it is essential to improve the governance structure and mechanism. (3) The government-led governance pattern faces the problem of mechanism failure. The command and control instrument accounts for more than 82%, and the public and enterprises lack strong policy guarantees to participate in marine governance. (4) The policy system's adaptability to emerging threats must be improved. Marine policies rarely involve emerging threats such as climate change and new pollutants. Meanwhile, the real-time supervision and monitoring mechanism is weak. The real-time supervision is only accounting for about 10%. Generally speaking, as a complex and long-term system engineering, the construction of MESS will inevitably encounter contradictions in politics, culture, and economy. China should deepen the construction of marine ecological civilization and form a governance concept based on ecosystems. Overall, this paper helps to understand the internal connection between MESS and policy comprehensively and provides a new perspective for improving China's marine governance capacity.