PASSINGS: Liu Huaqing

LIU HUAQING

Chinese navy chief, Communist Party leader

Liu Huaqing, 95, the father of the modern Chinese navy, died Friday of an undisclosed illness, state broadcaster CCTV said from Beijing. No other details were given.

Liu commanded the People’s Liberation Army Navy from 1982 to 1988 and is credited with revitalizing a coastal patrol force and setting it on course to becoming a powerful navy.

As commander, he laid out a strategy of building an offshore navy capacity by 2000 and a true blue-water navy able to operate far from home ports by 2050. That included the concept of a first, second and third line of island chains through which the navy would gradually expand operations eastward into the Pacific toward Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam and, eventually, Australia.

Accomplishing that goal requires the addition of modern submarines, surface ships and naval aircraft, and the navy has received lavish budget increases each year to acquire new equipment. China now has the largest navy in Asia, although it remains far behind the U.S. Navy in most respects.

Liu joined the Communist Party in 1935 and served with the People’s Liberation Army throughout the struggle against Japan and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. After the Communist victory in 1949, he was sent to the then-Soviet Union for study before being assigned to command units in the fledgling navy.

In his later years, he rose to the position of vice chairman of the party and government commissions that oversee the military, and he served on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of Chinese political power.

news.obits@latimes.com