Global magazine recently reported that "the world shipping center has moved eastward, but the rules of the game are still formulated by the West. This phenomenon should be gradually improved."

Container throughput has ranked first in the world, fleet size third in the world and seven of the world's top ten container ports for many consecutive years. China has become a major country in international trade and shipping in terms of port size and actual throughput.

Shanghai port, which has been the largest port in the world for seven consecutive years, completed a cargo throughput of 702 million tons and a container throughput of 37.13 million TEUs in 2016, more than 10 times higher than London port in the UK - but so far, London is still recognized as the first shipping center in the world.

Strong soft power is where London's maritime competitiveness lies. Taking maritime arbitration as an example, more than 90% of international maritime disputes choose to be arbitrated in London. Arbitration alone brings 30 billion pounds of revenue to Britain every year; In addition, as an old shipping center, 20% of the world's classification management organizations are resident in London, and 50% of the oil tanker charter business, 40% of the bulk carrier business, 18% of the ship financing business and 20% of the shipping insurance business are carried out here.

Maritime soft power is mainly reflected in the fields of maritime arbitration, shipping insurance and protection and compensation, intermediary services, ship economy, shipping finance and derivatives, Marine Psychology and so on. In recent years, China has made various efforts to enhance the soft power of shipping and made some achievements, but there is still much room for improvement in participating in the formulation of industry rules and improving the overall voice of China's shipping industry.

1. Enhance the "voice" of maritime transport

Maritime arbitration is an important way to solve world shipping trade disputes. World maritime trade disputes are mostly settled by maritime arbitration, which is one of the "trumps" of European and American maritime industry. With the advantages of international shipping center and International Maritime Arbitration Center, London has always been the first choice for maritime dispute arbitration by many shipping companies and shipbuilding groups all over the world. London's annual revenue from maritime arbitration and related shipping services accounts for 45% of the total revenue of the shipping industry.

With the development of China's foreign trade and shipping industry, there are more and more maritime disputes involving Chinese enterprises in recent years. From 2009 to 2015, the London Maritime Arbitrators Association accepted more than 1000 arbitration cases involving Chinese enterprises, involving hundreds of billions of yuan. However, in maritime dispute arbitration, Chinese enterprises frequently lose. Taking shipbuilding contract disputes as an example, the loss rate of Chinese enterprises in arbitration is as high as 90%.

On the one hand, this is because Chinese enterprises are not familiar with the rules of the international maritime game. On the other hand, it also reflects that China's "voice" in international maritime arbitration is not enough.

China's maritime arbitration industry originated in the 1950s. In order to enhance the international influence and credibility of China's maritime arbitration, China Maritime Arbitration Commission (hereinafter referred to as "IOC") has made active efforts. In 2015, the number of cases accepted by the Maritime Arbitration Commission totaled 136, with a year-on-year increase of 14.29%, including 61 foreign-related cases, with a year-on-year increase of 32.6%, involving 17 countries and regions, with a total amount of dispute of RMB 1.374 billion. 83 cases were closed throughout the year, and no award was revoked or not executed by the court. However, there is still a clear gap between the development of China's maritime arbitration industry and European and American countries. It is reported that in 2012, the London Maritime Arbitrators Association alone handled 2540 arbitration cases, and this number is increasing every year.

"The main reason is that the legislation is not suitable. First, China has no special maritime arbitration law, only the arbitration law, but the arbitration law does not take into account the particularity of maritime arbitration; second, the maritime law is now adjusted in a narrow scope, so the scope of accepting cases is also narrow. Previously, it only involved civil litigation such as transportation and ships, but it was extended to marine resources development after adjustment in 2004, but it is far from enough. In addition, we The arbitration institution of Dalian Maritime University has been affiliated with CCPIT until May this year, "said Si Yuzhuo, an expert in maritime law of China and former president of Dalian Maritime University.

"The world shipping center has moved eastward, but the rules of the game are still formulated by the west, and this phenomenon should be gradually improved." according to Si Yuzhuo, in order to improve China's soft power and voice and protect China's maritime rights and interests, there are three aspects to be carried out urgently.

The first is to amend the maritime law and the arbitration law. More than 20 years have passed since the implementation of the maritime law in July 1993. In these 20 years, many new international conventions have been issued or modified, and the maritime law cannot be in line with the international standards without modification; In addition, China has also introduced the property law and guarantee law, and revised the contract law and insurance law, which requires revising the maritime law to make it better connect with the common law; In addition, there are some deficiencies in the maritime law itself. For example, there are no targeted provisions in the criminal law applicable to criminal crimes at sea, and the maritime law is a special law of civil law and does not involve provisions on criminal responsibility, which leads to gaps and deficiencies in the law. The revision of the arbitration law should also consider the characteristics of maritime arbitration.

Second, improve the marine legal system and participate in and lead the formulation of international marine game rules. In the past, in terms of maritime transportation, China was a law "dominating the world", covering civil, criminal, administrative and other aspects; At present, maritime activities are diversified, and it is urgent to form a system of maritime legislation, namely "sea law". In this system, the first level should be the "basic law of the sea", followed by the second level laws, including civil, administrative, criminal, economic, marine environment, marine resources and military affairs related to the sea.

Third, arbitration institutions should be further de administrated.

From a to Z China one belt, one road, one belt, one road, and the other more than 60 countries, especially the maritime Silk Road, are mostly developing countries. China's maritime legislation is different from ours. China has been involved in the formulation of the Rotterdam rules from beginning to end, and the Rotterdam rules are shipping plus other transportation. One belt, one road transport model, is the International Convention for the multimodal transport. We can try to lead and lead the countries along the border to launch a regional international convention or multilateral agreement as a guarantee for the "maritime law" of "one belt and one road". Moreover, the revised maritime law, which contains multimodal transport, can also serve as a legislative sample for the countries along the line. "Si Yuzhuo suggested.

2. Development of shipping finance

Shipping industry is one of the industries with the highest degree of correlation and closeness with the world economy. Shipping finance plays an important role in the international financial market and has an important impact on the development of the international shipping market. Previously, compared with international developed shipping centers, China's development in shipping insurance and protection and indemnity, intermediary services, ship economy, shipping finance, shipping derivatives and so on was relatively lagging behind.

According to statistics, the scale of global financial transactions related to shipping is as high as hundreds of billions of dollars every year, including ship loans of about 300 billion dollars, ship leasing transactions of about 70 billion dollars, shipping equity and bond financing of about 15 billion dollars, shipping freight derivatives market of about 150 billion dollars and marine insurance market of about 25 billion dollars.

In recent years, the global shipping industry has entered a new round of adjustment period, and the world shipping center has shifted eastward, which has brought opportunities for the development of China's shipping finance industry.

On the one hand, the traditional shipping finance industry mainly focuses on ship financing. With China's shipping industry moving towards "deep sea", the main body of shipping finance industry has increased from cargo owners to shipping companies and financial institutions, and the business format has also expanded from ship financing to online payment, shipping insurance, supply chain finance, etc; On the other hand, China is now the world's largest ship insurance market and the world's second largest freight insurance market. Shanghai will also pilot and support various insurance institutions to carry out innovation in shipping insurance products such as sea terminal liability insurance, oil pollution liability insurance, new carrier liability insurance, NVOCC liability insurance and warehouse liability insurance in the region.

At present, in the global shipping financing market, London, as an international shipping financial center, has a shipping financing market share of 18%, while China provides less than 5% of the funds and services. Although the gap is obvious, a good momentum is that the gap is narrowing. Oretis sinas, Dean of the shipping business school of Hamburg business school, once analyzed the current situation of shipping finance with detailed data and pointed out that Asian financial institutions, especially Chinese financial institutions, have great potential in the development of shipping finance, or will become the biggest leader in the trend of shipping finance.

3. Master shipping "pricing power"

According to Liu Bin, director of the Institute of world economics of Dalian Maritime University, in addition to the development of shipping finance, it is more important to master the shipping "pricing power" from a large shipping country to a powerful shipping country.

"The number of orders held by Chinese shipbuilding enterprises ranks first in the world, and the shipping volume accounts for one third of the world. The container throughput accounts for about 20% of the world. It looks prosperous, but we don't make much money. We still make money by extensive scale, while the United States makes money by rules. For example, if the carbon dioxide emissions of ships reach the shore exceed the amount of fines; for example, when investing in the capital market China still lacks a sense of existence in terms of ship capacity futures trading, "Liu Bin told the author.

Liu Bin said that although the European shipping industry does not make money through the capital market like the United States, it is also unambiguous in terms of "pricing power". European Maersk and Mediterranean Shipping have always been the leading enterprises in the world shipping industry. They lead the continuous large-scale, deep-water, informatization, modernization and capitalization of ships by manipulating ship types, and control the fuel market at the same time.

Japanese shipping companies have opened up the whole industrial chain in the form of property rights. Japanese merchant ships not only transport goods, but also invest in container factories, logistics companies and ports. They invest in upstream industries, such as iron ore of vale in Brazil, Rio Tinto in Australia and BHP Billiton, but also in downstream steel mills. Instead of the so-called industrial strategic alliance, they compete in the industrial chain formed in the form of property rights, Get "pricing power".

"In contrast, China's control over freight rates does not match its hard power in the shipping industry. At this stage, we can learn from the Japanese model, build our shipping industry chain and obtain greater 'pricing power' in the international market. In addition, we also need to improve our management of shipping enterprises, ship cost control and shipping risk control," Liu Bin said.

4. Strengthen the research of Marine Psychology

"When I was a volunteer for maritime search and rescue, I met a rescued crew member whose family were all killed at sea. He was very sad. He blamed us for saving him and wanted to commit suicide while we didn't pay attention. At that moment, I realized how important psychology is in ocean navigation." Bai Xiangen, China's first female Marine pilot crossing the Arctic Ocean, said in an exclusive interview with global magazine.

Navigation is a special profession, which requires seafarers to have strong physique, skilled professional skills and good psychological quality. There is a group of frequently cited data in the international maritime community: 80% of average accidents are caused by human factors; 45% of ship drivers will be at a loss when there is a dangerous situation of ship and personnel, and miss the best time to save the accident.

The investigation of seafarers' physiological factors is very important, and the attention to their psychological status is also indispensable. The changeable marine environment, high-intensity work pressure and long-term separation from family members are easy to affect seafarers' mental health, such as mental sub-health conditions such as fatigue, anxiety, depression or interpersonal difficulties. Due to the absence of organic diseases, these psychological problems are not easy to be found in time, but their impact on the whole navigation industry can not be underestimated.

"If you can't be found and dredged in time, it is likely to further develop into a more serious mental disease, which is not only harmful to the health of seafarers, but also bring potential safety hazards to maritime operations," said Zeng Weiming, a professor at the school of information engineering of Shanghai Maritime University.

Public information shows that before 1960, there were only a few articles on maritime psychology in the international maritime community. In 1978, the United Nations Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization put forward the important viewpoint of improving ship interpersonal relations, which took the first step towards officially recognizing the role of nautical psychology in navigation in the world. Since then, nautical psychology has gradually become an independent discipline.

In recent years, China has also made great progress in the development of nautical psychology. The author learned from Shanghai Maritime University that the university not only has Marine Psychology in its daily courses, but also increases the research on the technical level of Marine Psychology. A team of nearly 30 people led by Zeng Weiming is studying the use of brain functional imaging technology to detect the mental health status of different seafarers, aiming to help and serve the mental health of seafarers through quantitative analysis, so as to further protect maritime operations and enhance China's COSCO soft power.

It is reported that the study realized the evaluation of the mental health status of the tested seafarers by learning the unsupervised mental health evaluation classifier through effective brain function connectivity detection and support vector machine method; Then, the activation degree of brain function network and the distribution of central nodes of sub-health seafarers and normal seafarers before and after going to sea were compared, so as to further observe the change trend of brain function network of seafarers after going to sea for a long time.

"I hope to promote a safe operation early warning system with early detection, early assessment and early intervention, so as to ensure the psychological safety of seafarers and promote the development of shipping industry." Zeng Weiming said that this research has been supported by the key science and technology projects of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and has received the strong support and cooperation of many domestic shipping companies. At present, it is still under research. It is worth mentioning that the research has obtained two patents and has been published in international academic journals, which has attracted great attention from the world maritime community.

As a new branch of applied psychology, nautical psychology has a short history of research, and there are very few staff specialized in this field in the field of navigation and psychology. Zeng Weiming said that the research data is difficult to obtain. In addition to recruiting more seafarers, it is also difficult to collect positioning information. Moreover, this evaluation can not be completed overnight. It needs long-term tracking and observation, so as to ensure the accuracy of scientific research and draw more scientific and objective conclusions.

Bai Xiangen suggested that in the future, we may learn from the practice of the pilot industry and regularly conduct psychological tests on seafarers, including interview and recruitment, which can be involved in advance.

Building a maritime power has a long way to go

"Maritime power" is a strategic positioning relative to other countries and regions. A modern maritime power is a country that, relying on its comprehensive national strength, ranks first in the world in terms of maritime security, competitiveness and leadership.

The development level of China's shipping industry has improved significantly in recent years, but China's status as a shipping power, not a shipping power, has not changed, and the construction of China's shipping power has a long way to go.

Improving the mechanism for participating in international maritime affairs, enhancing national influence and close industrial chain interaction mechanism are important guarantees for enhancing and consolidating competitiveness and the core competitiveness of a country's maritime development.

In order to enhance the international influence of shipping, China can improve the appointment mechanism of personnel to relevant international maritime institutions and organizations, strengthen the research on international shipping technical standards and regulations, and improve the implementation of relevant technical standards and rules. Recently, Chinese enterprises have established joint venture shipping enterprises and terminal companies abroad in different ways, which is also one of the measures to expand the global presence of China's shipping industry and enhance its influence. It is also a good way to enhance the international influence of shipping to regularly hold various high-level forums on international shipping development and attract IMO or other organizations to hold conferences in China.

In addition, we can learn from foreign experience, adjust the shipping tax policy and shipping financing policy, study and gradually establish an attractive ship or shipping development fund with tax preference as the basic source, guide private and social capital into the shipping industry through policies and measures, and provide financial guarantee for the survival and healthy development of the shipping industry. While refining and strengthening their main business, maritime enterprises are encouraged to moderately develop industries that are relatively independent of the maritime cycle, especially the resources, energy and financial industries, so as to improve the ability of sustainable development.

In addition, reshaping the industrial chain can improve the control of the shipping system. Promote the cooperation between large shippers and shipping enterprises, and strive for China's ocean shipping rights to the greatest extent in trade terms. It is necessary to establish a fleet composed of large specialized ships that can ensure the safety of China's international resource transportation, and a liner fleet composed of large container ships with scale and route structure enough to avoid possible discrimination against the freight rate of China's manufactured products by oligopoly competition. Encourage shipping enterprises and insurance enterprises to explore new modes of insurance services, and build professional shipping insurance companies with Chinese characteristics in combination with the construction of international shipping centers.