Chinese navy names its first woman captain of a warship
- Wei Huixiao, the commander of the guided-missile destroyer the Shaoxing, joined the navy after working for Huawei and studying for a PhD
- She featured in a number of profiles in state media over the weekend as the navy celebrated its 73rd anniversary
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The Chinese navy has appointed its first woman commander to one of its warships.
Wei, who had previously worked for the tech giant Huawei Technologies, applied to join the navy in 2011 while completing her PhD and was tipped as a future commander four years ago.
She was born in 1977 in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. After graduating from Nanjing University, she served as secretary to the senior vice-president and then as an executive assistant at Huawei, open records show.
In 2004, she enrolled at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou to study for a master’s and doctorate in earth sciences, graduating in 2011, according to the university’s alumni association.
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A profile celebrating her rapid advance up the ranks in the Communist Party’s mouthpiece People’s Daily said that in her application she wrote: “This aircraft carrier is the biggest stage for Chinese naval officers. My dream is simply to be an ordinary crew member, spending my days fighting the wind and waves.”
She previously served as the deputy director of the Liaoning’s marine department, before becoming deputy captain of the destroyer Changchun. In 2017 she took interim command of another destroyer, the Zhengzhou, and the following year the military newspaper PLA Daily predicted that she would become the first full-time female ship’s captain.
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Her ship, the Shaoxing, featured in a report by state broadcaster CCTV last week as it took part in a series of drills in the East and South China seas.
The Type 052D destroyer was designed to match the US Arleigh-Burke class destroyers. It is equipped with advanced radars and electronics comparable to the US Aegis system, as well as 64-cell vertical missile launchers.
