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China Rescue and Salvage BureauThe Rescue and Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国交通运输部救助打捞局) (short form, China Rescue and Salvage) is an institution directly under the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China. It is the most important maritime rescue and salvage organization in China, and the only one that operates at national level. It is based in Beijing.[1] As of 2022, it had 10,000 employees, 80% of whom were professional technical personnel, divers, and crew, manning 191 vessels (76 specialist rescue vessels, and 132 specialist salvage vessels), 20 rescue aircraft and 21 specialist rescue teams.[2] CRS has gained a good international reputation for its willingness and ability to operate in extreme bad sea conditions,[3] receiving a number of international prizes.[4] The CRS also engages in commercial salvage work, and other forms of marine engineering. HistoryThe origin of China Rescue and Salvage are in a series of local institutions based in Shanghai. In 1951, with the approval of the Central People's Government, the Central Ministry of Communications decided to merge the Maritime (Salvage) Department of the State-owned Maritime Transport Bureau with the nationalized Huaxing Salvage Company.[5] On 24 August 1951, a new state-owned enterprise, the Chinese People's Salvage Company was established in Shanghai, responsible for navigation and salvage at the Huangpu River and Yangtze River estuaries. The company had to deal with 59 shipwrecks at the bottom of the Huangpu River that had sank from the end of 1948 to the beginning of 1949 (during the civil war), and with hundreds of shipwrecks in the Yangtze River estuary channel, by sealing holed hulls and pumping water, mud removal, barge lifting, shipwreck removal, and channel dredging. The company had 120 employees, including 6 members of the Chinese Communist Party.[citation needed] On 4 November 1952, Chen Yun, director of the Financial and Economic Committee of the Central People's Government Administration Council, issued Public License No. 243 to the China People's Salvage Company. At that time, the company had only one 125-kilowatt tug (the Panshan -- 盘山号) and more than ten small barges.[6] In four years, the company managed to remove 104 wrecks of around 100,000 tons total displacement, mostly from the Huangpu and Yangtze delta.[7] From 12 February 1953, the Chinese People's Salvage Company used the name "Salvage Company of the General Administration of Navigation Engineering". Zhang Zhikui served as the manager from August 1953 until January 1966.[8] From 1 January 1956, the company's name changed to "Salvage Engineering Bureau of the General Administration of Navigation Engineering", still with the nature of a business institution. On 1 July 1958, it was renamed Shanghai Salvage Engineering Bureau. On 23 July 1958, the then Minister of Transportation Wang Shoudao ordered the merging of maritime rescue with salvage operations. From 16 September 1958, shipwrecks in the coastal waters of China from Wenzhou to the mouth of the Yalu River were placed under the responsibility of the Shanghai Salvage Engineering Bureau, making the SSEB into the first national-level combined rescue and salvage organization. The SSEB first set up three rescue stations at Yantai, Shanghai, and Wenzhou. On 15 February 1963, the Shanghai Salvage Engineering Bureau was renamed the Shanghai Maritime Rescue and Salvage Bureau. In December 1963, the Ministry of Communications set up the Yantai Rescue Station and the Tianjin Rescue Station as detached units.[9] By the first half of 1964, five rescue stations had been built in Tianjin, Yantai, Shanghai, Wenzhou, and Xiamen.[10] A major inciting incident for the development of Chinese maritime rescue occurred on 9 October 1973, when the Greek freighter Baltic Klif sank[11] outside of Fujian province during Typhoon Nora[12] without effective response by the Chinese authorities of the port of Xiamen,[13] which made Zhou Enlai complain about the "cowardice" of the slow reaction. This extremely sharp rebuke (in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, when such rebukes tended to have dangerous outcomes) caused a drive to strengthen coastal rescue networks across the country.[14] As a reaction, in 1973 the State Council and the Central Military Commission jointly issued a document to establish the National Maritime Security Command. In 1974, a national maritime search and rescue work conference was held in Qingdao. The meeting decided that the Ministry of Transport would establish two new maritime security headquarters in Yantai and Guangzhou. The Guangzhou Maritime Rescue and Salvage Bureau (the former Third Engineering Team of China People's Salvage Company) was created that same year, and on 28 September 1974, the Yantai Shipwreck Rescue and Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport was officially established. On 30 April 1975, the Tianjin and Yantai rescue stations were formally transferred to the Yantai Salvage Bureau, and 308 employees, 3 tugboats, 3 salvage barges, 20 salvage buoys, and total assets of 130,000 yuan were transferred with them.[15] The three new Salvage Bureaus started building 9 rescue stations, built rescue docks, radio stations, and recruited People's Liberation Army Navy veterans to expand their force.[16] The bureaus also started to add high-horsepower, specialized rescue tugs. In 1975, China bought from Japan its first purpose-built deep-sea rescue tug, the Hujiu 101 (沪救101号, literally Shanghai Rescue 101), a 87 m (285 ft 5 in) long, 14 m (45 ft 11 in) beam, and 2,100 tons displacement vessel.[17][18] Soon after, with the start of the reform and opening, the bureaus were also progressively allowed to operate commercially, the Shanghai bureau under the name "Shanghai Tug Company". With the rapid growth of marine traffic as China foreign trade grew, the opportunities for profitable activities became common, and as the Bureaus were allowed to retain earnings for reinvestment, they grew steadily in equipment and capabilities.[19][9] As part of the generalized reform for the commercialization of SOEs, on 28 February 2003, the Ministry of Communications, the National Development and Reform Commission, and six other ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Notice on Issuing the Implementation Plan for the Salvage and Rescue System Reform" (Jiao Ren Lao Fa [2003] No. 60), formally implementing a wide reform of the salvage and rescue system. Starting on 1 April 2003, the Ministry of Transport implemented this reform, separating rescue from salvage. The three salvage bureaus allocated assets to three new Maritime Rescue Bureaus, in the Beihai (Northern Seas—Yellow and Bohai seas), Donghai (East China Sea), and Nanhai (South China Sea), co-located but separate from the three salvage bureaus in Yantai, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. Four rescue aviation squadrons were also raised.[20] The logic of the reform was that while rescue duties are part of the peremptory public service of protecting life, ship salvage is not as time sensitive and, when not involving urgent seaway clearance, can be made into a commercial activity. After the split, the salvage bureaus would some carry out some emergency duties such as disaster relief and urgent salvage operations, while also engage in commercial salvage of sunken ships and sunken objects in public waterways; port debris clearance; rescue and salvage of distressed ships where there is no risk to life; emergency emptying of bunker from sunken ships, and containment of oil spills from distressed ships; and prevention of environmental pollution resulting from marine accidents.[9] It was expected they would use their profits to fund equipment and preparation for both the salvage and the rescue units. The new six bureaus were put under the vertical leadership of the Rescue and Salvage Bureau of the Ministry of Transport, which coordinates their activities, although all six subordinate bureaus operate autonomously.[21] The CSR in its various incarnations has, in the period between 24 August 1951 to 23 August 2021, rescued a total of 82,783 people (12,703 foreigners) and 5,424 ships in distress (957 foreign ships) in harsh sea conditions and other emergency and dangerous environments, and salvaged 1,827 sunken ships (99 foreign ships).[22][19] Since the 2003 reform, the Guangzhou Bureaus have carried out a total of 423 salvage missions, rescued 129 ships, and rescued property worth RMB 7.08 billion; salvaged 59 sunken ships, recovered 185 bodies of victims, and rescued 1,133 people;[23] the Shanghai bureaus ; and the Yantai bureaus have carried out 512 salvage missions, rescued 3,163 people, salvaged 183 sunken ships, and recovered 5,000 tons of spilled oil.[9] FunctionsChina Rescue and Salvage is by law responsible for emergency response to maritime emergencies in Chinese waters, including life saving operations, ship and property rescue, shipwreck and sunken object salvage, maritime firefighting, cleanup of oil spills, and other public welfare responsibilities such as providing safety guarantee for maritime transportation and offshore resource developments. Its Chinese motto is "three rescues and one salvage" (i.e. human life rescue, environmental rescue, property rescue, and emergency salvage).[24] The CRS has some policy-making obligations as well, preparing the five-year-plans for the national salvage system,[25] and some administrative duties such as coordinating maritime air patrols, and taking command and coordination roles of major rescue and salvage operations. It also has the duty to fulfill some of China's international obligations (such as some China's SOLAS obligations). The CRS must also collect the data and statistics related to rescue operations and salvage in China,[24][a] CRS cooperates very closely with the China Maritime Safety Administration's Maritime Search and Rescue Center (中国海上搜救中心), which is the main maritime SAR coordinator in China, and with other emergency control centers in the country. [26][27] The various subordinate units of the CRS operate as commercial businesses as well, in particular the Shanghai Salvage Bureau, which with the name of China Offshore Engineering Solutions (COES) operates several national international subsidiaries, carrying out both salvage (such as the difficult lifting of the wreck of the ferry Sewol in one piece)[28] and other marine engineering operations (such as long-distance towing the aircraft carrier Kiev,[29] caisson and immersed tunnel placement,[30] and even underwater archeology.)[31] The other salvage bureaus also operate underwater engineering, land reclamation, ship repair, shipbuilding, and harbor engineering companies.[32] OrganizationInternal unitsSource:[33]
Subordinate unitsAs of 2021, the CRS had a total of 24 rescue bases, 88 rescue ship standby points (coastal and at sea), 10 rescue flight airbases, and 115 temporary take-off/landing points (for helicopters)[19] spread in the coastline between the Yalu River in the north to the South China Sea Islands in the south.[34][2] Its subordinate units are as follows: Rescue Bureaus
Salvage Bureaus: italics indicate a subsidiary company
Air Squadrons
EquipmentSalvage ShipsRescue Ships
TugsAirplanesSource:[43] China Rescue and Salvage Exhibition Hall (中国救捞陈列馆)The China Salvage Exhibition Hall was established in 2011, located in the Sea Rescue Building, No. 1426, Yangshupu Road, Shanghai. The exhibition hall covers an area of 1,636 square meters with general exhibits of salvage equipment, models, multimedia presentations, etc. The museum is open free of charge from August 2018.[44] Leadership
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