appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Ling Xin

A top naval software expert, whose work helped warships to process battlefield information and support combat decisions, has vanished from the Chinese Academy of Engineering’s online membership list.
Zhao Xiaozhe, 63, a vice-admiral in the PLA Navy, once headed the Central Military Commission’s top science and technology body, helping to shape research priorities across China’s armed forces.
He is the latest prominent defence expert to disappear from the academy’s website, following reporting in March of the unexplained removal of profiles belonging to a nuclear weapons scientist, a radar specialist and a missile designer, among others.
Zhao was reportedly absent from a high-level Communist Party study session on artificial intelligence chaired by President Xi Jinping in April last year, with his deputy attending instead.
His profile has also been removed from the academy’s separate online museum of academicians.


Zhao was elected to the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2011 while at the Dalian Naval Academy, where he was a professor and doctoral supervisor. He also served as director of its Combat Software and Simulation Research Institute.
He led major research programmes on battlefield management, warship command-and-control systems and the development of reliable military software.
His work helped China to establish a domestic system for developing combat software, introduce a new command structure for surface warships and build a three-tier decision-support system for naval operations.
At a 2016 event at his alma mater, Dalian University of Technology, Zhao offered students a more personal account of the persistence behind his career, according to Chinese media reports at the time.
He recalled learning to programme in the early days of computing, when computer code and data had to be entered using punched paper tape. With only one computer room on campus, students were often assigned time slots after midnight.
Before their sessions, Zhao and his roommates would stretch the tape across the dormitory, shining flashlights through it to find incorrectly punched rows. He also remembered a roommate once waking everyone by shouting “even number of holes!” in his sleep.
“It may sound arduous now, but we did not feel that way at the time,” Zhao said. “Looking back, it was a happy and fulfilling experience.”
Zhao said his team later tested naval command systems at sea in makeshift, container-like cabins with barely enough room for two or three people to turn around. The compartments were freezing in winter and intensely hot in summer.
“I just wanted to make it work,” he said. “Whatever it took, I had to get the job done on time.”
He left the young audience with a final message: “The flowers of success are gathered from the thorns along the path of exploration. If we keep moving forward, flowers will eventually be everywhere.”
Passionate about science? Dive deeper with the Dark Matters newsletter, a weekly in-depth analysis on China’s rise in science, technology and military that goes beneath the surface. Sign up for free now.


T. rex was warm-blooded and had body temperature close to ours, study finds

China uses 100,000 home-grown AI chips to build leading weather forecast system

Geologists find unexpectedly large water sources in Xinjiang beneath China’s largest desert

Chinese scientists build world’s smallest CT scanner, weighing just 6kg

Science

Chinese navy’s combat software guru Zhao Xiaozhe disappears from academy website

Zhao Xiaozhe, pictured at an event held by his alma mater in 2016, when he inspired students with stories of his experiences in the early days of computing. Photo: Dalian University of Technology

Xi Jinping urges Chinese armed forces to ‘strengthen military application’ of AI

President Xi Jinping reviews troops during a massive military parade that showcased the PLA’s latest arsenal, in Beijing on September 3, 2025. Photo: Xinhua

Who are the officers filling the big shoes left behind in PLA anti-corruption drive?

Illustration: Henry Wong


President Xi Jinping, chairman of the Central Military Commission, poses with CMC vice-chairman Zhang Shengmin (front row), and the newly promoted Zhang Shuguang (back row, left) and Wang Gang, in Beijing on July 3. Photo: Xinhua 

Air Force Lieutenant General  Chen Demin (left) and Vice-Admiral Xiong Zhaoyuan appear to have taken charge of the CMC’s Political Work Department. Photo: Handout

General Yang Zhibin heads the Eastern Theatre Command. Photo: Handout

How AI is helping to open a new chapter for ancient Chinese literature

Increasing numbers of medical and scientific texts are availble online. Photo: Getty Images

Online tools can not only help readers search texts but also translate them into modern language and provide background information. Photo: Handout

Many ancient works are largely inaccessible to modern readers. Photo: Xinhua

News

China

The vice-admiral is the latest prominent expert to be removed from the prestigious national engineering institution’s membership list


The vice-admiral is the latest prominent expert to be removed from the prestigious national engineering institution’s membership list.


Xi Jinping

Central Military Commission

Chinese Academy of Engineering

Chinese navy’s combat software guru Zhao Xiaozhe disappears from academy website

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The vice-admiral is the latest prominent expert to be removed from the prestigious national engineering institution’s membership list

The vice-admiral is the latest prominent expert to be removed from the prestigious national engineering institution’s membership list