There is very little development right on the Chinese coast until farther north, I venture to say Qingdao on the Shandong peninsula. It's the same with Japan. People in that part of the world know from millennia of experience that it's just a matter of time before whatever they build gets wiped away by a typhoon or tsunami. Look at what happened to Sendai and Fukushima in our recent memory. There is also the legacy of pirates and invasions. The Qing Dynasty used to prohibit people from living within something like 30 li from the coast.

Incidentally, I am in Dalian right now, on the coast of Bohai sheltered from the East China Sea. It's a real seaside city unlike Shanghai. I know this doesn't help OP, but a lack of coastal development is the reality for most of China.