14 Facts About Huang Xuhua

Huang Xuhua was a Chinese mechanical engineer, and the second chief designer for the country's first generation of nuclear submarines.

Huang Xuhua was director emeritus of the Wuhan-based 719 Research Institute of the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, and was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Huang Xuhua was born on 12 March 1926 in Swabue, Guangdong Province, of Jieyang Hakka ancestry.

Huang Xuhua graduated from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1949.

In 1958, Huang Xuhua was among the 29 people selected to develop the program, meant to bolster China's nuclear deterrence against the US and the USSR.

In retrospect, Huang Xuhua remembered these years as "the only easy time" of his life, as he had no responsibilities other than feeding the pigs.

Huang Xuhua entered service in 1974, making China the fifth country to own a nuclear submarine, after the United States, the USSR, the United Kingdom, and France.

In 1979, Huang Xuhua was appointed one of the three deputies to the first chief designer Peng Shilu, for China's nuclear submarine project, and the other two were Zhao Renkai and Huang Xuhua Weilu.

In 1983, Huang Xuhua succeeded Peng as the 2nd chief designer and continued working on the nuclear submarine project.

Huang Xuhua died in Wuhan, Hubei Province on 6 February 2025, at the age of 98.

In November 2017, Huang Xuhua was awarded the honour of "National Model for Virtue".

In September 2019, Huang Xuhua was awarded the Medal of the Republic, China's highest order of honour.

Huang Xuhua was ever called in Chinese media "the father of China's nuclear submarines", but this has been disputed by the naval writer Li Zhongxiao and some scientific-technical staff of the first generation of China's nuclear submarines.

In 2021, Huang Xuhua became a laureate of the Asian Scientist 100 by the Asian Scientist.