Trade and transportation

Since the mid-20th century there has been remarkable growth in trade between the western Pacific Rim—most notably China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan—and North America, particularly the United States. Trade has also expanded between North America and such Southeast Asian countries as Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and, to a lesser degree, Indonesia; in the western Pacific, trade has increased between Japan and South Korea in the north and between Australia and Southeast Asia in the south. In addition, trade patterns in the United States have shifted, with Pacific countries now accounting for a major portion of overall trade. In the United States, Los Angeles has surpassed New York City as the port with the country’s largest trade volume in terms of value, and the nearby port of Long Beach has also become a major hub of international trade.

Thus, the Pacific Ocean supports some of the world’s most important trade routes. Most of the exports moving from west to east and from north to south are high-value-added manufactured goods. Conversely, most of the exports moving from east to west and from south to north are raw materials and light manufactures.

Outside of the United States, Japan is the largest Pacific trading country, and the most important commodity flows in the Pacific are to and from Japan. Japanese imports, mostly raw materials, far exceed the country’s exports in tonnage. Its exports—principally motor vehicles, machinery, and precision and electronic equipment—are distributed virtually worldwide, although the largest quantities go to the United States. Following closely behind Japan is China, whose trade has grown dramatically since the 1990s.

Among other trading countries of the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand are principally exporters of raw materials, while South Korea and Taiwan are highly dependent on trade and are also large importers of raw materials. The smaller island countries of the Pacific contribute only a minor fraction to overall Pacific trade, but most of them depend heavily on trade, particularly imports of such basic materials as foodstuffs and petroleum. Generally, the small islands are net importers rather than net exporters, with only Papua New Guinea exporting more than it imports.

With the increased importance of the Pacific in worldwide trade has come a corresponding growth in the size of its transportation infrastructure. Japan, South Korea, China, and the Philippines rank high in ship ownership, and Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are among the world’s major shipbuilding countries. In addition to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the other major ports in the eastern Pacific are those in San Francisco Bay and in the Puget Sound region. In the western Pacific, Japan’s ports in Tokyo and Ōsaka bays dominate trade; other major ports include Pusan in South Korea, Shanghai and Hong Kong in China, Kao-hsiung in Taiwan, and Sydney in Australia. Singapore, though on the fringe of the Pacific Ocean, dominates traffic to and from Southeast Asia and is the principal link between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

Environmental impact of human activity

The Pacific Ocean is able to absorb, dilute, and disperse large quantities of human-generated wastes, but the increasing pace of economic activity—particularly the transport of crude oil and other hazardous substances—has led to measurable levels of pollution in some nearshore waters, especially close to ports and large coastal cities. At the same time, the loads of pollutants in waters close to land have increased—primarily raw sewage, industrial waste products such as heavy metals, and river-borne fertilizers and pesticides. Thus, although the large expanse of open ocean in the Pacific has not been affected all that much, serious problems have arisen in some of the more confined bodies of water. In a number of instances, populations of commercially important fish and crustaceans have been depleted or made unfit for use by the pollution of confined waters.