On April 12th, Wang Chen, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, conducted a legislative research in the Ministry of Transport. During the investigation, Wang led the members of the investigation team to the Integrated Center of Emergency Response of the ministry to know about the achievements of chart drawing, and the development of China’s transportation industry, especially that of shipping business, by ways like watching videos of maritime search and rescue. The team’s focus is on hearing advice from shipping companies, navigation society, maritime and rescue departments, as well as experts in sea transport, so that they can better amend the Maritime Traffic Safety Law.
Vice executive director Zhang Baochen, on behalf of China Institute of Navigation (CIN), put forward three suggestions. Starting from speeding up the review process of Maritime Traffic Safety Law (revised draft) and putting it into practice, Zhang pointed out that it has been nearly 40 years since its promulgation and implementation. Nowadays, profound changes in maritime transport scale, technical level, prominent contradictions and safety concepts, called for revision of the law, as the old version had fallen behind the times. The current draft revision has been very perfect and will be decisive in improving China's maritime traffic management system. He hoped it would be approved and implemented as soon as possible.
Focusing on high-standard convention adherence and legislation, Zhang commented that China has made remarkable achievements in the performance and domestic transformation of international maritime conventions. Today, in an era when the national strength, shipping level and safety concept have been significantly improved, China, facing future international situation and development trend, should pay close attention to convention execution and lawmaking. The first is high-standard conformity to marine regulations. This denotes zero tolerance towards situations lower than international convention standards, and supervision strengthening to ensure that no breach of convention, casualties or serious pollution occur in Chinese ships, which avoids providing a “chance” for countries and organizations with ulterior motives to attack China’s negligence on human rights and environmental protection. The second is to actively participate in the drafting and modification of the convention, promote our good technology and management innovation experience, and make positive contributions to the world maritime traffic safety and environmental protection.
Zhang Baochen, centering on how to support the development of a shipping power from macro strategies and national legislation, stated that shipping has natural advantages such as large volume, low cost, less space and better energy efficiency. Not only does it account for more than 85% of the total international trade transport, but is the core support of the Maritime Silk Road, as well as an important part of building a power of sea, transport, and shipping. Under the new development pattern, shipping will shoulder a more important mission, with an irreplaceable place in the foreseeable future. However, with the evolution of industrial structure and the development of technology, the focal point of shipping competition lies in standards and rules dominated by shipping technology, and developed countries such as Europe and the United States still dominate. If this situation is not changed, it will be difficult for China to move from a large shipping country to a shipping power. Therefore, Zhang suggested that measures should be taken at the national macro-strategy and legislative levels. One is to create conditions for China’s maritime industry to fairly take part in international competition, and the other is to vigorously support the local shipping technical innovation and application. As a navigation institute, we are willing to organize experts to find out how to find a way to solve the problem, and to make Suggestions to the government's competent authorities and the legislature.