In a ship mortgage, a shipowner gives a lender (or mortgagee) an interest in a ship as security for a loan. Similar to other types of mortgage, a ship mortgage legally consists of three parts: the mortgage loan, the mortgage document (deed) and the rights derived from the mortgage deed onto money lender. Ship mortgages differ from other types of mortgage in three ways. First, some privileged claims could have a higher ranking over that of mortgagee against the ship. Second, ships naturally move between jurisdictions. And third, a ship is always at risk of partial or total damages at sea. The use of ship mortgages emerged as a widely accepted practice in shipping industry in the 19th century as a major source of finance for ship owners.
In United Kingdom, ship mortgages practice traces to the Merchant Shipping Act 1894, the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 and subsequent amendments to the 1988 Act. Paragraph 21 of Schedule 1 to the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 provides that "a registered ship, or a share in any such ship, may be made a security for the repayment of a loan or the discharge of any other obligation; and on production of the instrument creating any such security (referred to in this Act as a mortgage), the registrar of the ship's port of registry shall record it in the register."
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a sovereign state in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of over 1.35 billion. The PRC is a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with its seat of government in the capital city of Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces; five autonomous regions; four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing); two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau); and claims sovereignty over Taiwan.
Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometers, China is the world's second-largest country by land area, and either the third or fourth-largest by total area, depending on the method of measurement. China's landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes and the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in the arid north to subtropical forests in the wetter south. The Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third- and sixth-longest in the world, run from the Tibetan Plateau to the densely populated eastern seaboard. China's coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometres (9,000 mi) long, and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East and South China Seas.
João Pedro dos Santos Gonçalves (born 15 April 1982 in Beja), known as China, is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays for Cypriot club Nea Salamis Famagusta FC as a left back.