Symbiotic state of Chinese land-marine economy

The simultaneous development of both the land and marine-based economy is required to achieve the economic development of coastal regions in China. Based on symbiosis theory, this study discusses land and marine-based economic symbiosis mechanisms and uses a logistic symbiotic function to construct a symbiotic evolution model of the land-marine economy. We conduct a division and feature analysis of the interactive model between the land and marine-based economies of 11 provinces (or cities) along the coast of China between 1996 and 2013, and discuss their economic development. The results show that, during the study period, the coordinated development model of the national land-marine economy is a parabiosis model. Fujian Province exhibits mutualism, Jiangsu, Hebei, Shandong, and Guangdong show commensalism, while Tianjin, Zhejiang, and Shanghai display parasitism, Guangxi and Hainan exhibit an antibiosis model, while Liaoning displays a parabiosis model. The land economic development model of Jiangsu and Fujian and the marine economic development model of Guangdong are improving the quality and efficiency of the factors of production. All other provinces’ development models improve the productivity of the production factors to expand the scale of production.