Forest City

seafloor, but also conceptual conditions that are critical to maritime management. A frequently used conceptualization of the maritime frontier since the formal annexation of Taiwan after the 1683 Battle of Penghu, is to divide the boundlessness ocean into two zones, namely, the inner sea space (neihai 內海) and the outer sea space (waihai 外海). Such division is a sociopolitical construction that assists maritime governance. The inner sea is perceived as the farthest extent of the Qing maritime authority, a region legitimately subject to sustained governance and state possession. By contrast, the outer sea space was considered a domain beyond the reach of administrative control and economic extraction, a space where pirates aimed to maximize their autonomy and power. In summary, this information on the perception and management of maritime space through Chinese history challenges the dominant Western narrative that China is a land-based, continental power. The nature of China’s long-established land–sea relationship is captured by the expression yihai weitian, whose emphasis of meaning has shifted from coastal food (and salt) production, to maritime trade by the 16th century, to the cartography of sovereignty by the 17th century. Further, a close examination of yanhaitu highlights how mapping, information-gathering, and history-writing were important components of a larger empire-building project implemented after the Qing dynasty took control of China proper in 1644, before the humiliation of the Chinese navy by the British in the mid-19th century. From a Chinese viewpoint, the First Opium War (1839–1842) represents the beginning of both its modern history, and the “Century of Humiliation”12 which ended in 1949 with the reunification of the country under Mao at the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). For the five decades after that time, China applied an inward looking, land-focused economic development approach, even after its well-known Chinese Reform and Opening program (改革開放) was promulgated in the late 1970s. This approach was a result partly of its fraught relations with most of the outside world and partly of its desire to maintain domestic productivity. China did not fully turn its attention back to the ocean until the late 1990s, when productivity following China’s economic reforms began to wane. As the growth of its gross domestic product (GDP) slowed, China started to develop its marine economy to reboot the economy, rather than enact more difficult and potentially unpopular economic reforms. At the beginning of the new millennium, one and a half centuries after the outbreak of the First Opium War, China launched its comprehensive ocean development strategy, finally revitalizing its once strong maritime management and coastal governance traditions. With the significance of China’s maritime frontier shifting from just territorial to both political and economic,

the sea is increasingly regarded as a critical area of influence and a major driver of the economy, hence the 21st century being branded the “ocean century.”

Blue Economy

“The day that China develops into a global ocean power is inevitably the day that the Chinese nation will have made its mighty comeback!”

— “中國發展成為世界海洋強國之日，必將是中華人族偉大復興之時！” (Gao 2007)

China has reclaimed 13,380 km2 of land and has expanded its coastline by approximately 2000 km since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949.13 The fact that the lion’s share of this expansion has occurred since the dawn of this millennium is of particular interest. An unprecedented surge of officially confirmed land reclamation was recorded in 2003–2005, and this high growth rate has been sustained up to this day. 21.23 km2 and 53.52 km2 of sea became land in 2003 and 2004 respectively, rising to more than 100 km2 per year since 2005, peaking at over 170 km2 in 2009, then continuing with approximately 110 km2 in 2015.14 This unprecedented frenzy of land reclamation in China since 2002 is double the total area reclaimed in the entire second half of the 20th century.15 That the pace and scale of China’s land reclamation after 2002 dwarfs that of any other nation is no accident. The phenomenon precisely correlates with China’s launching of a political agenda in late 2002, calling the 21st century the “ocean century” and proposing to make China “a great sea power” (haiyang qiangguo

海洋強國). The Coastal Map of the Seven Provinces (yanhaitu) was drawn up in the late 18th century under the auspices of the Qing imperial court which realized it urgently needed “a thorough overview of the entire maritime frontier” to manage coastal issues, as previous books and maps were “not up-to-date.” Two centuries later, In September 2003, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China approved Special Project 908 (hereafter Project 908), a comprehensive survey and assessment of all Chinese-claimed maritime space in the near seas. A special project committee was established the same year, with members from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA).16 Project 908 took eight years to complete and was carried out in three phases: Comprehensive Survey of the Near Seas (2004–2007), Comprehensive Assessment of the Near Seas (2005–2008), and Construction Information Infrastructure for a Digital Maritime Space (2009–2011). According to a government report, 2 bil-