Mapping the national blue economic system space: A case study of China

Abstract

In this paper, the development of the blue economy is considered from the perspectives of integrity, relevance, and operability. First, to further expand blue living space and achieve blue growth, development thinking must shift from supporting the development of a single agent to supporting the coordinated development of multiple agents. Thus, we set a list of 116 blue products. Second, we construct a conceptual model of the national blue economic system space. Taking China as an example, the product data, firm data and province data in China’s blue economic system are collected and processed based on the needs of the study, and the basic dataset for constructing China’s blue economic system space is obtained. Third, based on the blue product space, the blue firm network and the blue province network of China, as well as the mapping relationship that existed among them in 2010, China’s blue economic system space in 2010 is constructed. Finally, evolutionary maps of China’s blue economic system space from 1985 to 2018 are drawn to identify the spatial structure and characteristics of China’s blue economic development. We use application examples to verify that the national blue economic system space can play an important role in assisting countries in conducting systematic multicriteria assessments of blue growth strategies, and the use of such a complex network makes countries more likely to formulate evidence-based policies without being influenced by vested sectoral interests.