TEXT Analysis on Ocean Engineering Equipment Industry Policies in China between 2010 and 2020

Abstract

The ocean engineering equipment industry is the foundation for the implementation of maritime strategy. China’s national departments at all levels have developed relevant ocean engineering equipment industry policies to promote the rapid development of the industry. By using 56 industrial policies issued between 2010 and 2020 as the research sample, we conducted an in-depth assessment of the external structural characteristics and structure of the main cooperation network for such policies using descriptive statistics and social network analysis. Based on a symmetric analysis method, the two-dimensional matrix of cooperation breadth and cooperation depth, together with the measurement of the issuing subject’s centrality, was used to analyze the evolution of the subject’s role in the network. The research shows that the development of China’s ocean engineering equipment industry policies can be divided into three stages, and there are the following problems during the development of policies: (1) some policies and regulations are imperfect; (2) the network of cooperation among joint issuers is limited; and (3) some policies are issued by multiple government departments, but there is a lack of specialized and unified management from an absolute core department. Based on the above problems, we present some suggestions for policy optimization at the end of this paper.

1. Introduction

As one of basic tool of text mining and information retrieval, text analysis [1,2] refers to the representation of text and the selection of its features. The primary task of text analysis is to transform an unstructured original text into structured information that can be recognized and processed by a computer. There are many different methods to realize this process, such as granular computing [3,4,5,6], information fusion [7,8], attribute reduction [9,10,11,12], feature selection [13,14,15], three-way clustering [16,17,18,19,20,21], formal concept analysis [22,23], etc. In this paper, by taking 56 industrial policies issued between 2010 and 2020 as research samples, we apply different text analysis methods to discuss the development of ocean engineering equipment industry policies in China between 2010 and 2020.

Building marine power is an important part of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China raised the topic of marine power to a national strategy for the first time. The report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China put forward “accelerating the construction of a marine power,” and the marine engineering equipment manufacturing industry is the foundation for the implementation of this strategy. It is also an important part of the national development of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry. According to prior research, market demand is expected to increase to $260 billion by 2025.

The ocean engineering equipment industry and its development are closely related to and driven by the needs of national security and social stability. Its strategic, overall, and political characteristics determine that many problems in the development of this industry must be solved through the government’s macro-control, policies, and regulations [21]. The formulation of policies will directly affect the development of China’s ocean engineering equipment industry. Focusing on the strategy of becoming a maritime power, the state has successively formulated and implemented a series of important policy documents in recent years, including “The decision of the State Council on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries” and “The innovative development strategy of marine equipment manufacturing industry”. Industry-related policies are being continuously improved, and an initial strategic outline has been formed. Industrial planning, laws, and regulations form the main body of this policy system, but China’s ocean industry remains, generally speaking, in the “third echelon” of industrial development, and the construction of industrial policy is still in the primary stage. The establishment of a perfect marine industry policy system is urgently needed.

At present, academic research [24,25,26,27] on the ocean engineering equipment industry has been concentrated on the technical level, rather than on policy. Some of the relevant policy research [28,29,30] has focused on macro fields such as strategic emerging industries and equipment manufacturing. There is a lack of special research, especially quantitative, on ocean engineering equipment industry policy, and the problem of what kind of industrial policy for offshore engineering equipment should be established in China remains unclear. Wu [31,32] has done quantitative research on industrial policy documents related to ocean engineering equipment issued from 2006 to 2016. However, the following questions remain: What policies have been issued at the central level to promote the development of the ocean engineering equipment industry? How have China’s polices related to the marine engineering equipment industry evolved? What are the characteristics of the current policy framework, and is it in line with the latest development trends in the international offshore engineering equipment industry? What aspects should be optimized and improved? These problems are related to the optimal development of China’s marine engineering equipment industry and the realization of the goal of China’s marine power, and there is clearly a need for in-depth theoretical exploration and empirical research.

Taking 56 industrial policies issued between 2010 and 2020 as research samples, this paper uses statistical quantification of policy literature and social network analysis to examine the development of ocean engineering equipment industrial policies of China. Based on a symmetric analysis method, it makes a comprehensive and multi-dimensional analysis of the policy literature of the offshore engineering equipment industry issued by China’s central government and suggests directions for future optimization. The main objective of this paper is to clarify the evolution of the concepts and laws related to China’s offshore engineering equipment industrial policy and provide a reference for the government to formulate industrial policy in the future. Simultaneously, the results of this paper provide a theoretical basis for further promotion of a perfect national policy system and give full play to the effectiveness of offshore engineering equipment industry policy.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we mainly introduce data collection and research methods used in this paper. The main results of the research are presented in Section 3. Conclusions and future works are presented in Section 4.

2. Data Collection and Research Methods

2.1. Data Sources

The policy texts used in this paper are from national-level policy documents. The decision of the State Council on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries, issued by the State Council in GF(2010) No. 32 document on 10 October 2010, separated the offshore engineering equipment industry from the previously affiliated industries, such as shipbuilding, and officially identified it as an independent industry. Using 2010 as the start date, relevant policies on the marine engineering equipment industry were searched for on the government portal websites of the State Council, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Oceanic Administration, and other relevant departments. The full texts of these policies were searched for the following terms using the Peking University platform: “ocean”, “ship”, and “high-end equipment” (retrieval time: 31 December 2020). To improve the accuracy of the search, the author went through the full text of each policy document, manually identified and screened out invalid documents, and eliminated local government policy documents that were not related to the offshore engineering equipment industry. Finally, a total of 56 policy texts were obtained, and a policy text database and corpus were constructed, as shown in

Table 1. Statistics of industrial policies for offshore engineering equipment.

Number	Policy LANGUAGE	Policy Name	Year of ISSUE
1	decision	Decision of the State Council on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries	2010
2	plan	Medium and long term plan for equipment manufacturing talent team construction (2010–2020)	2011
3–54	…	…	…
55	program	General plan of the State Council on printing and distributing six new pilot free trade zones	2019
56	guide	Guiding Catalogue for the promotion and application of the first major technical equipment (set) (2019 Edition)	2019

(limited space, only selected parts).

2.2. Research Method

Statistical analysis was used to quantify the structural attributes of policy documents, including “official document type,” “release subject,” and “release time,” along with other external structural elements, which have been widely used in government reports, scientific and technological innovation, related industries, and other policy research [33,34,35,36]. This paper statistically quantified the promulgation organization, release time, and text form of China’s existing marine engineering equipment industry policy to visually display its external structural characteristics.

The social network method involves integrating the “relationships” between actors. This paper used matrix and graph theory to quantitatively analyze and visually display the map of the object [37]. With the help of social network research, the cooperation network among the relevant policy-issuing institutions is analyzed, exploring the game process of cooperation and conflict between government departments during policy formation and implementation, and revealing the evolutionary rules guiding intergovernmental relations of government cooperation. This analysis is realized by the social network software UCINET.

Text analysis was undertaken using software automation and manual methods to extract the keywords from the policy text. Using Python to analyze the policy text content, Jieba word segmentation was programmed to preprocess the text, and then invalid and synonymous words were manually integrated to recycle the word segmentation. At the same time, the IF-IDF method was developed to summarize keyword and word frequency, which reveals the evolution characteristics of and trends in China’s marine industry policy.

The concept of network centrality was first proposed by Freeman as an index to judge the importance and influence of nodes in a network. It is generally divided into categories such as degree centrality, closeness centrality, and betweenness centrality [38]. Degree centrality measures the total number of connections of other subjects directly connected to the target node in the network structure, reflecting the ability of the node to control the connections of other nodes, and emphasizing the individual value of the node. The greater the general value, the greater the influence. The specific calculation formula is as follows:

$$C{D}_i={\displaystyle \sum _j{T}_{ji}}$$

where $T_{ji}$ is the j-th object connected to the target node i.

Proximity centrality measures the distance between the target node and other nodes in the network structure. It reflects the ability of the node to be unaffected and controlled by other nodes. It emphasizes the value of the node in the network. The larger the general value, the more central it is. The specific calculation formula is as follows:

$$C{C}_{\mathrm{i}}=\frac{1}{{\displaystyle \sum _j{d}_{ji}}}$$

where $d_{ji}$ is the distance between node j and node i.

Intermediary centrality measures the ratio of the optimal path of the network structure passing through the target node and connecting two specific nodes to the total number of optimal paths between the two points, thus reflecting the ability of the node to form a bridge between other nodes. It emphasizes the intermediary regulation effect of the node in the network. The larger the general value, the greater the node is at the core of the network. The specific calculation formula is as follows:

$$C{B}_i={\displaystyle \sum _{j<k}\frac{g_{jk}\left(i\right)}{g_{jk}}}$$

where $g_{jk}$ represents the total number of optimal paths from node j to node k, and $g_{jk}(i)$ represents the number of optimal paths from node j to node k through node i.

3. Results

China’s ocean engineering equipment industry started in the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning, it was only a subsidiary of the shipbuilding industry, but it developed rapidly as a separate industry at the turn of the 21st century. After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the 2008 international financial crisis caused the world economy to suffer the most serious challenges, leading to shrinking demand, overcapacity, and resource constraints. In 2009, the State Council held three symposia on the development of emerging strategic industries to speed up the adjustment of industrial structures through scientific and technological innovation and to cultivate a new growth pole for economic development. On 10 October 2010, the State Council issued “the decision of the State Council on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries” in GF(2010) No. 32 document, which proposed “vigorously developing offshore engineering equipment.” Since then, the state has issued a series of policy documents, such as “the innovative development strategy of offshore engineering equipment industry (2011–2020)” and “the medium and long-term development plan of offshore engineering equipment manufacturing industry”.

In 2015, two significant strategic programs were released: “Vision and action to promote the joint construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road” and “China manufacturing 2025.” The NDRC, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the State Oceanic Administration, and other ministries and commissions have since successively or jointly issued a series of policy documents around the marine engineering equipment industry, giving an initial shape to the policy system for China’s ocean engineering equipment industry. However, judging from the current patterns in international competition, China’s ocean engineering equipment industry is still in the “third echelon” and at the low end of the global offshore engineering chain. The next 5–10 years will be a key period for China’s ocean engineering equipment industry, and policy will serve as the “baton” for industrial development. The scientific construction and improvement of the policy system will determine the optimal development of China’s ocean engineering equipment industry and the realization of China’s goal of becoming a maritime power. This study conducted a comprehensive, multidimensional quantitative analysis of 56 policy documents related to the offshore engineering equipment industry issued by the central government from 2010 to 2020 (deadline for policy selection: 31 December 2020) to provide a reference for the government in formulating future policies for this industry.

3.1. Analysis of Policy Evolution Period

Since “The State Council’s decision on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries” was issued in 2010, the ocean engineering equipment industry has been promoted as a national strategy to one of the eight strategic emerging industries. A series of policy documents have been issued around the talent team, international development, development of noteworthy enterprises, and specific development planning for the offshore engineering equipment industry. Few marine industrial policies were issued from 2010 to 2014, with a fluctuating trend (the number of policies issued each year was one, four, five, two, and two, respectively). China was still exploring the development of marine engineering equipment industry at this stage.

In 2015, the “Vision and action to promote the joint construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st century Maritime Silk Road” and “Made in China 2025” were released one after another. Accelerating the development of marine industry became a strategic priority for China, related to the implementation of national policies and the long-term development of Chinese relations. The state then began to vigorously guide the construction of the marine engineering equipment industry. In 2016 and 2017, the State Council and various ministries and commissions issued 29 policy documents, involving related methods, schemes, plans, opinions, guidelines, laws, etc. At this stage, the number of policies issued by China’s ocean engineering equipment industry was quickly increasing in a period of rapid improvement. China’s preliminary offshore engineering equipment industry policy system had been constructed.

In 2017, the global ocean engineering equipment manufacturing market shrank sharply, the demand for such equipment continued to be depressed, and China’s ocean engineering equipment industry suffered a heavy blow. At the end of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the People’s Bank of China, the SASAC, the CBRC, and the SOA jointly organized and prepared the “Action plan for sustainable and healthy development of offshore engineering equipment manufacturing industry (2017–2020)”. These proposed measures included optimizing the industrial innovation mode, optimizing the industrial chain layout, accelerating product structure adjustment, and vigorously cultivating core advantageous products to ensure the sustainable and healthy development of the industry [30]. In 2018 and 2020, only six and two policies, respectively, were issued around the intellectual transformation, financial services, and insurance compensation of the offshore engineering equipment industry. The industry has thus entered a period of optimization and reform. Figure 1 reflects the number of documents issued and the growth trend of the marine equipment industry policy each year.

3.2. Analysis of the Text Form of Policy Release

The policy texts for China’s ocean engineering equipment industry contain 12 language types, including decisions, opinions, schemes, plans, and guidelines. Of the 56 documents, 19 (34.5%) are in the form of planning, with more opinions, plans, and schemes, while there is only one law, which is “The marine environment protection law of the People’s Republic of China” revised by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in 2017. Although there are various types of policy documents guiding the development of China’s marine industry, on the whole, the rules, laws, and regulations that are highly effective, mandatory, and normative are relatively weak, and more documents appear as plans and opinions with a lower policy level. This shows that although there are more guiding, forward-looking, and specific macro plans in China’s marine industry policy system, there are fewer institutional constraints and norms, which may reflect the national innovation-driven development strategy (see

Table 2. Statistics of policy text forms of China’s marine equipment industry.

Language	Decision	Opinion	Program	Plan	Guide	Outline	Way	Law	Strategy	Notice	Plan	Standard
Quantity	1	9	7	19	2	2	3	1	3	1	6	2
Proportion	1.8%	16.1%	12.5%	33.9%	3.6%	3.6%	5.4%	1.8%	5.4%	1.8%	10.7%	3.6%

for details).

3.3. Overall Description and Analysis of Policy Release Department

A total of 31 administrative departments have participated in the formulation of industrial policies for offshore engineering equipment, including 6 separate and 15 joint documents issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 21 policies, ranking first in the total number of policies. The NDRC, the second issuing unit, has participated in the formulation of 19 policies, including a number of joint documents; there are 16 and 13 units (jointly issued documents) that rank first. The State Oceanic Administration ranks third and has participated in the formulation of 17 items. The State Council was the first unit to issue documents alone. Except for the outline of the national innovation-driven development strategy jointly issued with the Communist Party of China Central Committee, the other 11 items were issued separately (see

Table 3. Distribution of policy issuing departments of China’s ocean equipment industry.

Publishing Department	Total Number of Documents Issued	Separate Document	Joint Issuance	First Issuing Unit (Joint Issuing)	Proportion of Jointly Issued Documents
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	21	6	15	4	71.43%
National Development and Reform Commission	19	3	16	13	78.95%
State Oceanic Administration	17	4	13	2	76.47%
The State Council	12	11	1	0	8.33%
Ministry of Science and Technology	12	1	11	3	91.67%
Treasury Department	10	0	10	1	100%
CBRC	5	0	5	0	100%
People’s Bank of China	4	0	4	2	100%
National Energy Administration	4	0	4	0	100%
SASAC	3	0	3	0	100%
Ministry of Education	3	0	3	0	100%
Ministry of Commerce	3	0	3	0	100%
Bureau of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense	3	0	3	0	100%
State Intellectual Property Office	3	0	3	0	100%
Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress	2	2	0	0	0
Ministry of Land and Resources	2	0	2	0	100%
Ministry of Transport	2	0	2	0	100%
Chinese Academy of Sciences	2	0	2	0	100%
CSRC	2	0	2	0	100%
CIRC	2	0	2	0	100%
AQSIQ	2	0	2	0	100%
CPC Central Committee	1	0	1	1	100%
Ministry of Foreign Affairs	1	0	1	0	100%
National Natural Science Foundation of China	1	0	1	0	100%
State Administration for Industry and Commerce	1	0	1	0	100%
Copyright Bureau	1	0	1	0	100%
Ministry of environmental protection	1	0	1	0	100%
State Administration of Taxation	1	0	1	0	100%
Customs Head Office	1	0	1	0	100%
National Standards Committee	1	0	1	0	100%
National Bureau of Statistics	1	1	0	0	0
Total	56	29	27		48.21%

for specific data).

On the whole, the number of separately and jointly issued documents is generally consistent with the trend for the total number of documents issued (see Figure 2); more than half the documents were issued separately every year, while only 48.2% were issued jointly. Compared with the policy systems of other industries, this division is high, which should be noted. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State Oceanic Administration are the first (joint) issuing units, but few policies have been issued. These two units lack the administrative power and the right to lead other departments to work together; as the “sorting center” for major national strategic planning and policies, the Development and Reform Commission takes first place as a document issuing unit. It has participated in the formulation of policies for the offshore engineering equipment industry and has the right to lead other departments in working together, which makes it less difficult to coordinate intergovernmental relations. It is thus commonly known as the Small State Council. Other departments, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance, are also important in the formulation of policies for the offshore engineering equipment industry.

3.4. Analysis of the Evolution of Cooperation Network of Policy Release Departments

The development of the marine engineering industry requires the cooperation and joint efforts of multiple departments. Studying and analyzing the relationship network between individual and joint policy-issuing departments can help clarify the core departments in the development of China’s marine engineering equipment industry and their coordination and cooperation relationships. It is of great and far-reaching practical significance to study how document issuing subjects act in different stages.

3.4.1. Overall Analysis of Cooperative Relationship network

In the section on the analysis of policy evolution periods, it is proposed that the offshore engineering equipment industry policy can be divided into roughly three stages: 2010–2014, exploration; 2015–2017, development; and 2018–2020, optimization. According to the policy-issuing subjects in these three stages, a cooperation network is constructed for relevant policy-issuing subjects, and the network is visualized using UCINET social network analysis software. To more clearly describe the cooperation network, the diagram has been centrally processed, as shown in Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5. The nodes in the diagram represent the document-issuing entities, and the lines between the nodes represent at least one instance of cooperation between two document-issuing entities to issue documents. The larger the physical size of the organization node, the more organizations jointly issue policies with it. The thicker the connection between the nodes of each organization, the higher the cooperation frequency between those nodes.

During the 2010–2014 exploration period, the national-level policies of China’s marine industry were generally issued separately. For joint issuance, the core policy-making bodies are the NDRC, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Science and Technology, with 15 other departments, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, the State Intellectual Property Office, and the State Oceanic Administration, issuing six policies, of which cooperation among the three core bodies was the most common except for one. At this stage, the cooperation between two departments is extensive, so the main cooperation network appears sparse (see Figure 3 for details).

During the 2015–2017 promotion period, thanks to the National 13th Five Year Plan and the introduction of Made in China 2025, the fields and objectives of marine industry construction were clarified. During this period, more departments cooperated, and the number of cross-departmental marine policies increased significantly as part of a top-level drive to reduce the fragmentation of departments in the development of the marine industry. At the same time, the State Oceanic Administration began to show its power, and—together with the NDRC, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology—it has become an important department for the promotion of marine industry policies. It has jointly issued 17 relevant policy priorities with 20 other departments, including the Ministry of Finance, the People’s Bank of China, and the CBRC. This period saw the involvement of more departments and more policy themes, thus forming a diversified situation in which the inter-departmental policy cooperation network became more complex (see Figure 4 for details).

During the 2018–2020 optimization period, due to the further transformation and upgrading of the marine industry and the possible policy response period, the number of departments involved in policy cooperation was significantly reduced compared with the development period. At this time, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology remained an important driver, and it cooperated with relevant financial departments to supplement and improve policies on investment and financing mechanisms, jointly issuing four policies with specific details (see Figure 5).

3.4.2. Analysis of Network Density of Cooperative Relationship

To further reflect the evolution of the network structure for relevant policy issuers, each index is quantified one by one in addition to visualizing the cooperative network. The number of texts refers to the number of jointly issued texts, the network scale refers to the number of joint issuers, and the network density represents the relationship between subjects in the cooperative network. Intimacy is generally measured by the ratio of the total number of actual relations to the maximum value of possible relations. The value range of network density is zero to one. The higher the network density, the closer the value is to one, indicating that the network members are more closely connected. As can be seen from the data in

Table 4. Relevant data of cooperation network of marine engineering policy subjects.

	Exploration Period	Promotion Period	Optimization Period
Number of texts	6	17	4
Network size	18	24	11
Network density	0.2559	0.2233	0.3472

, the network density in all three stages is not high, indicating that the cooperation network structure between subjects issuing marine industrial policies is generally loose. Because the relationships are scattered, mutual cooperation is sparse, and there is still much room for improvement.

3.4.3. Analysis of Network Centrality of Cooperative Relationship

The measurement results for the centrality of specific nodes in the cooperation network of subjects jointly issuing documents on China’s ocean engineering equipment industrial policies in the three stages (2010–2014, 2015–2017, and 2018–2020) are shown in

Table 5. Main body degree and centrality index of China’s ocean engineering policy joint issuance from 2010 to 2020.

Issuing Agency	Exploration Period	Issuing Agency	Promotion Period	Issuing Agency	Optimization Period
National Development and Reform Commission	36	National Development and Reform Commission	27	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	14
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	34	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	22	Treasury Department	9
Ministry of Science and Technology	34	Treasury Department	22	CBRC	9
Treasury Department	26	Oceanic Administration	21	National Development and Reform Commission	7
Intellectual Property Office	26	Ministry of Science and Technology	20	Oceanic Administration	7

,

Table 6. Indicators of closeness to centrality of the subject of joint issuance of China’s marine engineering policies from 2010 to 2020.

Issuing Agency	Exploration Period	Issuing Agency	Promotion Period	Issuing Agency	Optimization Period
National Development and Reform Commission	1	National Development and Reform Commission	0.639	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	1
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	0.944	Oceanic Administration	0.639	Treasury Department	0.818
Ministry of Science and Technology	0.944	Ministry of Science and Technology	0.605	CBRC	0.818
Treasury Department	0.944	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	0.590	National Development and Reform Commission	0.818
Intellectual Property Office	0.944	Treasury Department	0.590	Oceanic Administration	0.818

and

Table 7. Intermediary centrality index of China’s marine engineering policy joint issuers from 2010 to 2020.

Issuing Agency	Exploration Period	Issuing Agency	Promotion Period	Issuing Agency	Optimization Period
National Development and Reform Commission	18.567	Oceanic Administration	69	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	14
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	7.067	National Development and Reform Commission	54.6
Ministry of Science and Technology	7.067	Ministry of Science and Technology	32
Treasury Department	7.067	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	20.267
Intellectual Property Office	7.067	Treasury Department	7.6

, respectively (this paper only selects the top five departments for display). As shown in Table 5, during the exploration period, the degree centrality of the NDRC, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Science and Technology was high, which indicates that these three document-issuing institutions greatly influenced marine industry policy at this stage, with many joint documents at the same time. During the promotion period, the degree centrality of the NDRC was high, and there was little difference among the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the State Oceanic Administration, and the Ministry of Science and Technology. At the same time, although there were more policies and more subjects participating in the joint issuance of documents at this stage, the degree centrality of the issuing institutions became smaller compared with the exploration period. This indicates that there were few joint documents issued by multiple departments and more joint documents issued by just two departments. During the optimization period, the degree centrality of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the CBRC, the NDRC, and the Oceanic Administration was relatively small compared to the first two stages, which indicates that, at this stage, the country had entered an optimization and adjustment period for marine industrial policies, and the number of influential document issuers was decreasing.

As can be seen from Table 6, during the exploration period, the proximity centrality of the NDRC was one, which indicates that its joint issuance was highly independent, was not controlled by other government agencies, and did not rely on a third party to establish cooperative relations—that is, it participated in all joint issuance. At the same time, the proximity centrality of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, and the Intellectual Property Office was also high. At this stage, they played an important role in jointly issuing documents. During the promotion period, the close centrality of the NDRC, the Oceanic Administration, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Finance was higher, but the centrality was lower than in the other two stages, which indicates that there were more joint documents issued by different subjects. During the optimization period, the proximity degree of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reached one, as this became the most important subject in joint issuance.

It can be seen from Table 7 that during the exploration period from 2010 to 2014, the NDRC has a high degree of intermediary center, indicating that the joint issuance of documents between other entities can be realized through the NDRC on the path of more document issuance cooperation. During the promotion period from 2015 to 2017, the importance of SOA was highlighted, and the degree of control over the cooperation of other subjects was high. At the same time, compared with the other two stages, the centrality of each cooperative subject at this stage was higher, which also showed that there were more cooperative subjects and more joint documents between the two departments. During the optimization period from 2018 to 2020, only the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has a value of this index, which is in the absolute core middle position in the cooperative relationship network and controls the construction of cooperative relationships of other subjects. Therefore, based on the three indicators, during the exploration period from 2010 to 2014, the National Development and Reform Commission was in the central position of cooperation. During the promotion period from 2015 to 2017, the SOA was in the core position of cooperation. During the optimization period from 2018 to 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology became the core subject of cooperation.

3.5. Analysis of the Evolution of Policy Themes

First, according to the three stages of marine industry policy identified, the texts were grouped by policy stage, and the Jieba library in Python was used for word segmentation in the three stages. Due to the particularity of the policy text and the complexity of Chinese sentences, the stop word thesaurus and a user-defined thesaurus were called to improve the accuracy of word segmentation. After preliminary word segmentation, words such as construction, promotion, strengthening, and acceleration, as well as keywords unrelated to the policy theme, such as major, positive, further, and main, were removed. After these words were removed, the keywords with the same or similar meaning were unified and reprocessed. For example, key technology, core technology, and key core technology were replaced with key core technology; energy saving, environmental protection, and energy saving and environmental protection were replaced by energy saving and environmental protection. Finally, the IF-IDF method was used to extract 30 keywords at each stage, as shown in

Table 8. Keywords in different stages of marine engineering policy.

Exploration Period		Promotion Period		Optimization Period
Keywords	Frequency	Keywords	Frequency	Keywords	Frequency
technological innovation	626	technological innovation	2072	shipbuilding Industry	76
enterprise	586	public service	1254	enterprise	49
personnel training	384	enterprise	1018	ocean	44
intellectual property right	355	energy saving and environmental protection	918	intellectualization	39
supporting equipment	352	intellectualization	880	information	35
internationalization	335	resources	796	coordination	33
strategic emerging industries	302	ecological environment	794	platform	29
product	300	security	618	three-dimensional	25
ocean resources	276	product	618	digitization	24
public service	251	platform	585	product	21
energy saving and environmental protection	231	financial service	551	standard	19
resources	211	personnel training	511	resources	16
marine engineering equipment	208	key core technologies	498	financial institution	14
financial service	189	new energy	443	key core technologies	14
industrialization	185	far reaching sea pole	429	Standard system	12
market	167	coordination	398	insurance	11
key core technologies	165	green	386	international	11
intelligence	158	shipbuilding Industry	378	personnel training	11
far reaching sea pole	140	key equipment	373	financing	10
security	105	quality	368	financial service	9
high end equipment	93	standardization	288	loan	9
international Competitiveness	81	industrialization	257	banking	7
new energy	79	transformation of scientific and technological achievements	203	internet	7
industrial chain	61	intellectual property right	194	infrastructure	6
key parts	53	seawater desalination	186	artificial intelligence	6
shipbuilding Industry	48	civil military integration	185	information safety	6
infrastructure	45	strategic emerging industries	156	visualization	6
standard system	40	marine engineering equipment	141	key common technologies	5
renewable energy	33	sustainable development	118	management system	5
industry university research	30	transformation and upgrading	110	credit	4

.

The keywords in bold and italics in Table 8 are unique to the manually selected three stages. The policies of the three stages generally give more attention to the internationalization, industrialization, and intelligence of the marine industry; emphasize the key role of scientific and technological innovation, the development of key core technology, and talent training; and give attention to the promotion of relevant enterprises, products, and financial services.

During the 2010–2014 exploration period, in addition to giving attention to the common problems of marine industry development, the documents also paid more attention to marine resources, international competitiveness, industrial chain, and industry university research. The unique theme structure of this period was relatively unitary.

During the 2015–2017 promotion period, the state paid more attention to the development of the marine industry and vigorously promoted its transformation and upgrading. There are three aspects that deserve separate attention in this period: the construction of the ecological environment, the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, military–civilian integration. At the same time, the documents put forward requirements for the transformation, upgrading, and sustainable development of the marine industry.

During the 2018–2020 optimization period, the focus was on supplementing and improving marine industry policy. Compared with the promotion period, the documents pay more attention to the informatization and digitization of the marine industry and continue to provide financial policy support in the development of the marine industry, including insurance, financing, loans, and credit.

4. Conclusions

This paper analyzed the external structural characteristics of China’s ocean engineering equipment industrial policies based on 56 relevant policy documents and data issued by the central government from 2010 to 2020. This analysis yielded categorization by policy evolution period, text form and content, and description of cooperative subjects. Comprehensive quantitative research and in-depth analysis of the main cooperation network yielded several key observations.

China initially formed a marine industrial policy system based on the 2010 “decision of the State Council on accelerating the cultivation and development of strategic emerging industries,” which officially elevated the marine industry to a national strategy. According to the number and content of policy releases, marine industry-related policy can be roughly divided into three stages: 2010–2014 (exploration), 2015–2017 (promotion), and 2018–2020 (optimization). Based on the text form and content, there appear to be various types of marine industry policies, but the overall level of these policies is low, and there are fewer high-level policies, such as laws and regulations, guided by specific macro planning. There are many imperfect policies and regulations, and there is no pyramid structure to assess the level of effectiveness.

From the perspective of policy-issuing units, the policy subjects generally showed a diversified development. The promulgation of policies at the central government level involved 31 departments, of which the most important units were the NDRC, the State Oceanic Administration, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. These three departments also formed the core of joint document issuance at all stages, along with the State Council and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The Ministry of Finance has also been an important participant in the promotion of marine industry policy. On the whole, due to departmental attributes, different departments stress different aspects of the issuing documents. For example, as the highest administrative department of the country, the State Council is more inclined to put out more documents. The NDRC had the largest number of documents issued as the first issuing unit (joint issuance), accounting for 48.15% of the total number of jointly issued documents; it thus appears to be in an absolute core position in the formulation of relevant industrial policies under the national strategy.

From the perspective of the cooperative network, joint documents account for only 48% of the total. The cooperative network structure is generally loose. Although the scale of the cooperative network was greatest in the promotion period, the network density was at its lowest, and the subject centrality index remained relatively small. There is still much room for improvement in the cooperative communication of the sending subject. The NDRC, the Oceanic Administration, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology were the core departments for each of the three stages. Multiple policies for the marine industry policy appeared simultaneously, however, and there has been a lack of special unified management by an absolute core department.

Policies in the different periods emphasized the themes of scientific and technological innovation and key core technologies. Technology has always been the primary focus of marine engineering policy. At the same time, the policy focus in the three stages differed. In the exploration period, more attention is paid to marine resources and international competitiveness; in the promotion period, the focus was on the ecological environment and the transformation and upgrading of scientific and technological achievements; and in the optimization period, more attention was paid to financial policy support. The change of marine engineering patterns in the world market can be seen, and China has been continuously adjusting the industrial structure of marine engineering equipment at the macro level.

Based on the above discussion, we give the following recommendations for improving the process of government policy making. First, the state should strengthen the formulation of authoritative and effective laws and regulations, increase the formulation of specific implementation policies, and form a perfect top-down effective industrial policy guarantee system. Second, all national ministries and commissions should strengthen cooperation, engage in overall planning for the development of the marine industry, prevent multiple government departments and their own operations from working in isolation, establish leading central coordination by a specific department, ensure the stability of the main network of joint documents, give full play to the joint force of policies, ensure the efficiency of policy formulation, and prevent wasted resources. Although this study reveals the evolution path of marine equipment policy to a certain extent, research on the relationship between policies and the synergy efficiency of different policies needs to be further carried out. Future research can consider policy quality, policy performance, and other contents, focusing on policy combination and synergy efficiency.