A renowned and prolific historian of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Xiaobing Li once again delivers a uniquely illuminating account, this time with the definitive biography of China’s most important naval strategist of the 20th century. Admiral Liu Huaqing concluded his long career as PLA Navy (PLAN) Commander (1982–1988), senior-ranking CMC Vice Chairman (1989–1998), and one of just seven Politburo Standing Committee Members (1992–1997) – the last military officer to hold such a position.

Li’s highly accessible work is well worth reading, especially given the importance of China’s dramatic naval development – much of which Liu oversaw, and some for which he laid the groundwork and continued influencing even after retirement. But this book offers a still broader story: that of one of the most powerful and influential bureaucrats in PRC history and a direct participant in the elite decision-making and policy implementation of critical periods. In many ways, Liu’s life is a military-maritime microcosm of the major forces shaping 20th-century Chinese history.

As Li’s title suggests – and as the introduction explicitly asks – was Liu ultimately a “Red Mahan” or “China’s Gorshkov”? Li argues persuasively that while Liu absorbed aspects of Mahanian maritime thinking, his institutional and strategic development often bore at least as much resemblance to the long-dominant Soviet Admiral Sergey Gorshkov. Li demonstrates the extent to which Soviet institutional models, educational systems and operational concepts shaped the formative PLAN. Particularly valuable is Li’s effort to situate Liu within a much longer intellectual and institutional lineage of Chinese maritime thought, extending from late-Qing encounters with Mahan to Soviet naval influence during the early Cold War and close PRC study of American naval gold-standard examples (e.g. nuclear submarine safety procedures).

The cogent result has implications not only for how we may best understand Liu, but – given his exceptional and enduring influence – how we should understand China’s Navy and the currents that shape and propel it to this day. Particularly valuable is Li’s demonstration that many features associated with Xi Jinping’s navy – including maritime rights protection, far-seas operations, aircraft carrier development and nuclear deterrence patrols – rest on conceptual, institutional and bureaucratic foundations Liu spent decades advancing.

Undeniably talented and dedicated, Liu started with the advantage of being unusually well educated for someone of a revolutionary peasant background. In a fortuitous foundation that would later help elevate him to the commanding heights of political-military affairs, he enjoyed exceptionally close relations and trust with (eventual paramount leader) Deng Xiaoping, for whom he worked closely over 14 highly consequential years (1938–1952).

Long after his wartime service, Liu remained willing to take considerable risks to advance as he thought best the principles to which he dedicated his life. In 1975, while leading the PLAN Shipbuilding Office, Liu bypassed his chain of command and submitted an impassioned 10,000-character critique of China’s naval development plans directly to Deng and Mao. Deng forwarded Liu’s report to PLAN leaders with the endorsement that it contained valid points; the ailing Mao approved initially but months later reversed this in the face of opposition from Jiang Qing and fellow radicals, then purged Deng for a third time. When Deng returned to Beijing for good in 1977, however, he elevated his longtime loyalist to a series of high-level positions and provided for Liu’s further promotion.

For his part, Liu helped convince Deng – and later his successors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao – to prioritize naval, and broader maritime, modernization. Specialized historical accounts have already documented that when Deng began reforms, he prioritized shipbuilding to support the shipping industry, which helped carry foreign trade, underwriting several decades of rapid growth. This gradually established a foundation of resources and infrastructure from which naval and other military developments benefit today. In 1987 Deng approved Liu’s determined vision that China’s Navy adopt its first coherent service-specific strategy: “Near Seas Active Defence.”

Liu’s strategy emphasized expanding operational reach; defending Beijing’s contested sovereignty claims in the Near Seas (Yellow, East China, and South China Seas); and temporarily controlling key Near Seas areas and their immediate approaches in wartime. He subsequently directed incremental but consequential implementation. Having ordered surveying and mapping of Beijing’s South China Sea claims, Liu championed occupation and structure construction on the Spratlys’ strategic Fiery Cross Reef, then seizure of nearby Union Banks features to reinforce and fortify Beijing’s position. He convinced Deng to authorize forceful suppression of Vietnamese opposition, culminating in the 1988 Johnson South Reef Skirmish.

Liu’s leading role in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown is accurately emphasized by Li and further explains the trust and standing he subsequently enjoyed among Party elites. Another factor of great political-military importance is the degree to which Liu similarly influenced Jiang. As Jiang consolidated power and emerged from Deng’s shadow as paramount leader, however, he increasingly chafed at Deng’s decision that Hu must be his designated successor. Liu, then at the peak of his political power, had played an instrumental role in upholding the stipulation of the fading Deng, who died in 1997. Jiang settled political scores with the 82-year-old Liu in 1998, removing him from all his remaining positions. In 1999, Liu’s daughter and daughter-in-law were both arrested, amid broader patterns of self-enrichment and corruption allegations particularly rampant across reform-era China. Jiang nevertheless oversaw precisely what Liu advocated: great increases in naval shipbuilding and acquisition, together with other military investments that are paying off for China to this day.

Li pulls no punches in discussing the commercial self-dealing that pervaded the PLA and involved the children of many PRC elites (including Deng’s own). For Liu, at least, there was a happy ending: Hu came to power appreciative of Liu and his earlier support – not just honouring him as a national treasure but also influenced concretely by his military maritime advocacy. Hu’s later overshadowing by Xi in personality and policy implementation has arguably caused underappreciation of Hu’s own significant naval advancements. Liu reached the end of his life surrounded by accelerating progress in precisely the areas he had championed for decades.

While Liu is best known for his strong and influential advocacy of aircraft carrier development to support blue-water operations – ultimately beyond the First and Second Island Chains – Li reveals that Liu successfully promoted a wide range of PLA and PLAN platforms and the capabilities underpinning them. For example, Liu promoted nuclear-powered submarine development to such an extent that he emerges as China’s closest analogue to Admiral Hyman Rickover, whom he himself hosted as PLAN Commander. Liu’s bureaucratic stewardship and strategic leadership in advancing China’s nuclear submarine programme spanned nearly four decades (1961–1998) and key institutional positions. Liu ensured that nuclear propulsion remained a central pillar of China’s naval modernization and laid critical groundwork for the emerging third-generation nuclear submarines that have the potential to challenge in the undersea domain one of the last redoubts of American military dominance.

All this raises the question of why such an extraordinary figure in PRC history was not so comprehensively and compellingly profiled before. The answer lies at least in part in information availability. Probing Liu’s 730-page autobiography and two-volume Selected Military Works yields numerous bureaucratic details but falls far short of revealing the man himself in full relief. A profusion of popular accounts suffers from uncertain reliability. That is where Li’s unique expertise and access pay dividends. Having once served in the PLA himself, then investing decades of foundational research on the institution and its history as a scholar, Li was able not only to acquire and exploit a vast body of demonstrably authoritative Chinese-language sources, but also to conduct numerous interviews and archival visits in China and Taiwan to flesh out and corroborate key details. The result is arguably the most deeply sourced English-language biography yet produced of a senior PLAN leader. Readers are left with a far richer understanding of a consequential and fascinating figure from a foundational era in Chinese military-maritime history, the likes of which will not be seen again.