City brings together ocean initiatives, marine innovation and sustainability, forging inclusive ocean governance for the Global South
Xiamen, in East China's Fujian province, is emerging as a hub for a sustainable blue economy, marine innovation and oceanic environmental conservation. In December 2025, Xiamen hosted "the China-BRICS Science and Innovation Incubation Park for the New Era" collaboration event, bringing together institutional partners from BRICS and BRICS+ countries. In May, the 2026 BRICS Forum on Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) was held in Xiamen, with participants from 27 countries and regions discussing smart manufacturing, artificial intelligence and industrial cooperation. In October, Xiamen rolled out the Overseas Industrial Park Service Channel of the Maritime Silk Road Integrated Base for International Legal and Business Services, extending the city's BRICS innovation-base ecosystem to support cross-border trade, investment and supply-chain links across the Global South.
The 2026 World Ocean Week, held from Nov 5 to 11 in Xiamen under the theme "Join hands to protect the deep blue: Harmony between people and the sea", puts global maritime governance high on the agenda. Drawing on multilateral frameworks including the BRICS, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and China-ASEAN mechanisms, the event frames the blue economy as a space for shared governance rather than competition — going beyond environmental diplomacy to link ocean science, biodiversity, climate and industrial cooperation across the Global South. For the expanded BRICS nations, this summit serves as an opportunity to secure trade routes, share high-tech marine infrastructure and resolve challenges resulting from geopolitical conflicts.
With approximately 80 percent of global trade traveling by sea, BRICS member states — many of which are leading maritime nations — increasingly view marine sustainability and maritime security as closely linked. The coasts of these nations stretch along the Pacific, Indian, Atlantic and Arctic oceans in addition to the Mediterranean, Red Sea and the Gulf which much of the world trade passes through. The 2026 World Ocean Week therefore offers practical benefits for the Global South in general.
First, it pools high-tech and deep-sea research assets. Deep-sea exploration and polar research require substantial investment and advanced technology that few nations can sustain alone. Xiamen has become a center for this research cooperation, housing the BRICS Marine Sustainable Development Research Center and regularly hosting the BRICS Marine Science Workshop. Through the active coordination of the BRICS Working Group on Ocean and Polar Science and Technology, the summit allows member states to bypass traditional Western research networks. Joint initiatives launched in Xiamen focus on sharing costly deep-sea submersibles, mapping remote marine ecosystems and pioneering biopharmaceutical innovations derived from marine organisms. This collaborative model lowers entry barriers for newer or developing member states, expanding the Global South's involvement in advanced marine biotechnology.
Second, it works to secure critical trade corridors and seafarer safety. For a geographically dispersed group spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and South America, reliable maritime transport is essential. Geopolitical friction and supply chain choke points have forced BRICS nations to use international maritime forums to develop practical security frameworks. A prime example is the ongoing diplomatic push for an international Seafarers' Emergency Support Network proposed by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi in September. This initiative would link maritime authorities and diplomatic missions across BRICS countries to align the distress alert systems and emergency evacuation protocols of member nations.
Third, it helps establish BRICS cooperation in the blue economy. The choice of Xiamen as the host for World Ocean Week and the center of BRICS maritime cooperation reflects the city's maritime role. As a historic Maritime Silk Road gateway and a modern hub for the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, Xiamen has successfully evolved from a traditional shipping port into a major hub for the marine economy, with its blue economy now accounting for 30 percent of the city's total GDP. Furthermore, because Xiamen is one of the world's most advanced automated shipping hubs, the event offers an example for members looking to modernize their own domestic ports, standardizing smart-port logistics across the grouping to insulate trade from external shocks. For visiting BRICS and Global South delegations, Xiamen serves as an example of how cities can develop ocean-based economies through high-tech marine industries. Supported by robust municipal funding, Xiamen has transitioned away from low-yield marine extraction to a global hub for marine biopharmaceuticals, automated deep-sea equipment manufacturing and offshore renewable energy engineering.
Furthermore, the city hosts one of the densest scientific clusters in Asia, bringing together thousands of marine scientists and numerous national research platforms, and generating hundreds of marine-tech patents. It also anchors the Global Ocean Negative Carbon Emissions program, an official international initiative approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. The program leads carbon-sink research across dozens of international institutions and focuses on enhancing the ocean's natural carbon sequestration capabilities to help achieve global climate targets.
The business matchmaking segments of World Ocean Week connect project developers with potential financiers. Global South and BRICS nations can utilize this platform to pitch large-scale ecological and industrial projects — such as mangrove restoration, offshore wind energy and sustainable fisheries — directly to multilateral lenders. By working with the New Development Bank and relevant UN organizations, BRICS members can bypass traditional green-finance channels that often come with restrictive political strings. Furthermore, the forum allows the BRICS to co-author its own definitions and standards for "Blue Carbon" credits, ensuring that carbon-offset mechanisms favor the developmental realities of emerging economies.
Perhaps one of the most significant long-term benefits is political in nature. As international bodies move from ratification into implementation of the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Agreement, also known as the UN High Seas Treaty, major players are seeking to influence the governance of the world's shared waters. China's proposal to host the permanent BBNJ Secretariat in Xiamen turns World Ocean Week into a venue for coordinated BRICS diplomacy. By coordinating positions on biodiversity and maritime boundary laws, BRICS members help ensure that the rules of high-seas trade and resource extraction are shaped through inclusive multilateral negotiation, rather than unilateral decisions.
Xiamen 2026 World Ocean Week offers a platform for both environmental cooperation and the changing role of the BRICS in maritime affairs. By combining scientific resource-pooling with targeted financial mechanisms, the BRICS can use ocean cooperation to strengthen its members' economic resilience and build stronger ties within the larger Global South.
The author is the vice-dean of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden and a distinguished research fellow at Guangdong Institute for International Strategies.
The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn.
