China's Ocean Economic Development Plan

Regional Strategic, Economic, and Political Implications

On April 30, 2013, the Slade Gorton Policy Center and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation held a roundtable discussion on China’s ocean economic development plan and the regional strategic, economic, and political implications with Tabitha Mallory from Johns Hopkins University.

Over the past decade, China launched an ocean economic development plan. An important part of the plan addresses fisheries resources. China is already the world’s largest producer of seafood. As overfishing and maritime territorial disputes pressure the near seas, China is expanding its fishing operations to the high seas and into the exclusive economic zones of other countries in places like Africa and Oceania. With 87 percent of the world’s marine fish stocks fully exploited, overexploited or depleted, China’s role in the sustainable management of global fish stocks has significant environmental, economic, and security implications.

The roundtable discussion was moderated by former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton.