Inland River Governed by New Law

Reporter Yang Peiju

On December 28, 2014, the "Law of Waterway of the People's Republic of China" (referred to as the “waterway law") was adopted in the twelfth meeting of the twelfth NPC Standing Committee Meeting.The navigation function of inland rivers is repositioned and is identified by law. Inland rivers have therefore entered a brand new era of being governed by law.

For more than 20 years after reform and opening up, at the same time when the construction of railway, highway,and aviation is developing quickly, inland river navigation has been gradually marginalized due to shortage of capital investment and poor management system. According to statistics, during the fifty years from 1949 to 2000, the national investment in inland river navigation is only 15.3b Yuan, amounting only 7.7% for the railway and 7.3% for the highway. During the period of eleventh five-year plan, the national investment in waterway construction is only 1.5% of the total investment in highway, railway and waterway construction in the same period. This falls far short of the demand for the development of waterway, and the gap for capital used for waterway maintenance is over 12% for each year.

Over the years, there has been the unrelenting call for unified management of the main rivers of China. As regards the Yangtze River area which attracts the most attention, Zhou Jianmin, member of the CPPCC National Committee and Director of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Nanjing Branch considered that presently, there are more than a dozen departments which can execute management function on the Yangtze Rvier and there are dozens of governments along the Yangtze River, a lot of coordination work need be done. He suggested that firstly a new system should be created combining river area management with administrative region management,clarifying the macro management functions and direct management functions of the river management bodies;the second is to establish new administrative relationship combining river area management with district management; the third is to establish the authority of river area management bodies such as establishing the policy and regulation function of river area bodies, as well the function of environment impact assessment. Considering that the harnessing and development of Yangtze River and the unified management of the water resources of the river area involve many departments including environmental protection, land, forestry, transportation, power, water conservancy and etc. of 19 provinces, autonomous regions and Municipalities, and that the relationship of interests of local governments and departments are complex and entangled, it is necessary to develop a specific law for the purpose of unification and coordination. So, it is urgent to introduce a general basic law “l(fā)aw for the Yangtze River”to implement unified management of the river area.

It is happy to know that with the accelerated promotion of the national strategy for the Yangtze River Economic Belt,China is paying more attention than ever before on river navigation and waterway construction, and the legislative process has also been greatly accelerated. Upon introduction of the waterway law, the related promotion work is ongoing intensely. It is believed that with the re-positioning of the navigation function of inland rivers and the accelerated legislative process for river navigation, it is only a matter of time to realize the great objective of “drinking the water from the same river and developing together”.