Attitudes towards utilizing the oceans in contemporary Chinese society: gaining insights for sustainable human use of the oceans

This dissertation aims to gain insights into achieving sustainable human use of the oceans through investigating human attitudes towards utilizing marine resources in coastal Chinese society. An online survey and a grounded-theory approach were utilized to collect data and carry out the multifaceted analysis. It is discovered the majority of coastal Chinese citizens have favorable attitudes towards marine environment and marine life protection. How Chinese people perceive the use of marine life is correlated with their moral orientations and core environmental values. In terms of offshore oil and gas resources, Chinese people hold a low support, high risk-perception, and moderate trust over offshore oil and gas drilling. Such attitudes find their origin on the one hand in the millennia old Chinese history and agrarian society, on the other hand in the Confucianism-based traditional Chinese culture. Findings from this research draw attention to the concepts of morality, anthropocentrism, and cultural and social context in sustainable human use of the oceans.