Towards An Equitable “Maritime Community with a Shared Future”? China’s Equity Mobilization in Global Marine Governance

In this paper, we analyze China’s capacity to advance global ocean equity by assessing how it mobilizes the assemblage of the concept, policy discourse, equity principles, and UN instruments around the Maritime Community of Shared Future (MCSF), and UN instruments for equity. From a relational perspective, capacity refers to unrealized potentials that nonetheless influence actors to move in a certain trajectory. To conduct this analysis, we adopt a mixed-method approach combining observation and discourse analysis to critically examine data from global ocean meetings including the 2022 UN Ocean Conference, 2021-2022 CBD COP 15, and 2021-2023 negotiations of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). Our findings reveal that China frames equity within the context of international order and responsibilities under the UN ocean framework, reflecting high justice in Chinese Confucian justice configuration. However, current efforts neglect Chinese Confucian low justice considerations, such as fair treatment and equal social systems. In addition, China neither frames itself as a subject of equity nor a provider of equity, but a partner facilitating the equitable transition of international development. Moreover, China mobilizes distribution as the dominant dimension of equity, and only mentions UN's Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Common Heritage Principles in their discourse on global ocean negotiation. China’s current approach to equity mobilization does not effectively address tension with the Western liberal perception of justice and rights, difficulties in the pragmatic operationalization of China’s “win-win” and “reasonableness” principles, and challenges in balancing regional and local cultural diversity. By configuring more equity narratives towards multidimensional equity and the UN instruments for equity in global ocean negotiations, China could enhance its capacity to lead an equitable and sustainable transition of global ocean governance.