China’s marine environmental governance faces a persistent paradox: despite four decades of expanding policy effort and institution building, outcomes have lagged behind expectations. In light of this, we ask whether the core problem lies not in implementation but in a structural imbalance within the policy instrument mix. We develop a Supply–Environment–Demand (SED) framework and apply computational text analysis, combined wi...

Marine pollution governance in semi-enclosed seas represents a significant global environmental challenge. Both China’s Bohai Sea and Japan’s Seto Inland Sea have achieved remarkable governance successes through sustained efforts in the face of similar ecological crises. However, their paths to these achievements diverge considerably. This study aims to investigate the differences in governance mechanisms that explain this phe...