Among the top 100 ports in throughput around the world，83 are located in coastal areas.As an important transportation infrastructure in China，coastal ports are playing an important and irreplaceable role.Due to the resource endowment conditions of China’s coastal areas，natural excellent shoreline resources suitable for port construction are scarce.Consequently，most ports have to make up for the weaknesses involving water depth，sediment deposition，and wind and wave sheltering by engineering means.The fostering of deep-water shoreline resources through normal sea use and necessary sea reclamation is a basic rule and an inevitable requirement to ensure the construction and development of coastal ports.However，the implementation of port reclamation has been in a “one size fits all” manner after the issuance of the Circular of the State Council on Better Protecting Coastal Wetlands and Having Land Reclamation Under Stringent Control.This directly leads to a series of problems.For example，the strategic environmental assessment of port plans requires that all new reclamation works be canceled.Other problems include the slow handling of the longstanding problems in reclamation and the virtual stagnation of new coastal port projects.Port construction and development have already shown signs of a “standstill”，which necessitates urgent special attention and research for corresponding countermeasures.