Interviews | Security | East Asia

China’s Mahan: The Man Who Created China’s Modern Navy

Insights from Xiaobing Li.

People’s Liberation Army Navy ships Yueyang (FF 575) (left) and Haikou (DD 171) (right) participate in a replenishment-at-sea (RAS) approach exercise during Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise 2014, July 15, 2014.

The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Xiaobing Li – professor of history and the Don Betz Endowed Chair of International Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma and author of  “China’s Mahan: Admiral Liu Huaqing and the Rise of the Modern Chinese Navy” (Naval Institute Press 2026) – is the 508th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”  

Describe the influence of the 19th century U.S. Navy strategist Alfred Mahan on Admiral Liu Huaqing, the commander of China’s navy from 1982-1988 and a vice chair of the Central Military Commission from 1990-1998. 

Mahan influenced Liu Huaqing with new strategic ideas and conceptions of maritime sovereignty and sea power. Mahan’s sea-power theory showed Liu what China needed to be a great power again. Liu realized that China had traditionally been a land power despite its long coastline. He agreed with Mahan on “rich country and a strong navy.” Liu also understood that China lost its power position in East Asia due to its naval defeat to Japan. China needed a strong naval force if it wanted a national rejuvenation.

Although Liu Huaqing’s theory and practice sometimes resembled or overlapped with parts of Mahanian theory, the findings in the work did not provide enough evidence to show Mahan’s direct influence on the Chinese admiral. One of the reasons is that Mahanian theory may include universal truths about the nature of maritime strategy. These truths are accessible to theorists and practitioners regardless of whether they have read Mahan or not.

How did Russian Admiral Sergey Gorshkov’s influence on Liu Huaqing differ from Mahan’s influence? 

Meanwhile, Liu Huaqing’s fundamental understanding of maritime theory and naval force-building was derived from intellectual roots such as Gorshkov’s maritime theory and naval-building. The Chinese admiral shared the similar institutional framework and organizational system with the Soviet naval commander. Therefore, Liu Huaqing was more like China’s Gorshkov than “Red Mahan.”

Gorshkov influenced Liu on how to build a strong Chinese navy with institutional reform, technological improvement, and centralized party-naval control. Gorshkov’s theory and methodology showed Liu step by step to transform the PLA Navy (PLAN) from weak to strong, from a near shore fleet to a far-sea modern navy. Liu learned Gorshkov’s experience and lessons during his four-year study in the Soviet Union. 

Analyze how PLAN operational doctrine and strategic thinking has been transformed under Liu Huaqing’s maritime security doctrine. 

Liu Huaqing reconceptualized China’s sea power and shifted naval strategy from near shore defense to near sea defense and far-sea protection. He told the chiefs that China’s next war would be a naval conflict in near sea locations like the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea. Thereafter, the PLA moved away from traditional ground war preparation and instead focused on new naval warfare. Liu’s plan prioritized the PLA Navy’s modernization under the third-generation command and new efforts in reorganization, institutional reform, and improving sustainability systems.

His strategic thinking broadened the country’s maritime interests, redirected China’s ocean-going development, and built a blue-water navy capable of far-sea operations. He transformed the PLAN from a defensive force to an offensive navy, and his new strategy led the PLAN’s development of aircraft carrier battle groups, key combat warships, and high-tech weapon systems. As a result, China’s shipbuilding industry, aviation technology research and imports, reconstruction, qualitative improvement, and naval training and education systems backed its impressive naval development throughout the entire 1990s and continued into the 2010s. Liu shifted the PLAN from brown-water operations........

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