Figures come from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: new orders received were 175.29 million deadweight tons, accounting for 81.8% of the world; orders on hand were 399.13 million deadweight tons, accounting for 72.4%; completions were 58.05 million deadweight tons, accounting for 63.6%.
The shipowners are Greek, Danish, and Singaporean. The ship was welded in China.
I originally wanted to ask a very natural question: What did the people in charge of these shipyards learn back then?
After flipping through more than a dozen public resumes, I was stunned for a moment.
Exactly one-third are studying shipbuilding.
Let’s look at this table first: twelve people, four origins
In the shipyard of Jiangnan Shipyard's Changxing Base, a very large container ship is being built. This year, Chinese shipyards have received 80% of the world's new ship orders.
These twelve helmsmen come from China State Shipbuilding Corporation, China Heavy Industries, China Merchants Industry, as well as private enterprises such as Yangzijiang Shipbuilding and Hengli Heavy Industries.
According to academic qualifications, they can be divided into four groups.
The first batch, the shipbuilding class, consisted of four people: Sheng Jigang, Chen Gang, Lin Ou, and Wang Yongliang. They went to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Wuhan University of Technology, Tianjin University, and Zhenjiang Shipbuilding Institute. They entered the shipyard right after they came out and never left a ship in their lives.
In the second group, there are four other engineering majors: Xu Peng studied thermal power in power plants, Wang Guoqiang studied mechanical manufacturing, Lei Fanpei studied solid rocket motors, and Wen Gang studied explosive technology.
The third group, management and finance, has two: Chen Jianliang studied EMBA and DBA at Fudan University, and Mei Xianzhi received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Wuhan University of Technology and a master's degree in management from Zhejiang University.
The fourth group, two people who never went to college: Ren Yuanlin graduated from high school, and Chen Jianhua dropped out of school at the age of 13.
figure
Current or former positions
Colleges and majors
Xu Peng
Chairman of China State Shipbuilding Corporation
Zhejiang University Power Plant Thermal Power
Wang Guoqiang
General Manager of China State Shipbuilding Corporation
Wuhan Institute of Technology Mechanical Manufacturing Technology and Equipment
Sheng Jigang
Chairman of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (600150)
Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ship Engineering
Chen Gang
Chairman of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding
Wuhan University of Technology Shipbuilding and Ocean Engineering
Lin Ou
Chairman of Jiangnan Shipbuilding
Tianjin University Ship Engineering; China Europe International Business School MBA
Chen Jianliang
Chairman of Hudong Zhonghua
Fudan University EMBA; Fudan-CityU DBA (undergraduate major not disclosed)
Mei Xianzhi
General Manager of China Merchants Industry
Bachelor of Engineering from Wuhan University of Technology; Master of Management from Zhejiang University
Wang Yongliang
Chairman of China Heavy Industries
Zhenjiang Shipbuilding Institute (now Jiangsu University of Science and Technology) Ship Engineering; CEIBS MBA
Ren Yuanlin
Founder of Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Industry
High school graduate; Economics and Management, Jiangsu Radio and Television University
Chen Jianhua
Chairman of Hengli Heavy Industry
Dropped out of school at 13
Lei Fanpei (formerly)
Former Chairman of China State Shipbuilding Corporation
Northwestern Polytechnical University solid rocket motor
Wen Gang (formerly)
Former Chairman of China State Shipbuilding Corporation
Beijing Institute of Technology Explosion Technology
Note: The above is the institution and major information in public resumes; the undergraduate majors of Chen Jianliang and Mei Xianzhi have not been publicly disclosed, and are marked as "Undisclosed" in the table.
The last one on the list is Wen Gang, the former chairman of CSSC. Explosives and ships are thousands of miles apart. But he did manage the world's largest shipbuilding group.
If shipbuilding is a technical job, how to explain this?
I thought about it for a long time, and the final answer is: We got one thing wrong. There is never more than one production line in a shipyard.
There are two production lines in the shipyard, one in the water and one in the conference room
In the dock of Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, China's first large-scale cruise ship "Aida·Modu" is undergoing final adjustments before delivery. The difficulty of building this type of ship is called the "crown jewel" of the shipbuilding industry.
A production line is in the water, building ships.
The other one is in the conference room, and is about "should we build this boat, how many will we build, who will we sell it to, and at what price?"
The first line is the domain of engineers, and the value of academic qualifications is frighteningly high.
Zhu Yingfu, the chief designer of China's first aircraft carrier "Liaoning", received his bachelor's degree in Shipbuilding from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 1963 and his master's degree in 1966.
Hu Keyi, chief engineer of Jiangnan Shipbuilding, graduated in 1982 from the Department of Ship Engineering of Jiaotong University.
Jiang Fumao, Dean of the Design and Research Institute of DSIC, graduated from Jiaotong University in 1989.
Cai Qianya, President of Jiangnan Research Institute, received a PhD in ship design from Jiaotong University in 1998.
There is also Mao Xianqun, the leader in the development of a certain type of ship, who graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1992 and a master's degree in 2003.
In 2018, the China Shipbuilding Engineering Society named 8 "Ship Design Masters", 4 of whom are alumni of Jiaotong University. This line, professional counterparts from mouth to teeth.
The second line does not look at the drawings, but at the account books.
A 300,000-ton VLCC costs more than 100 million US dollars. Steel plates are one of the largest cost items. According to brokerage research and calculations, from 2021 to 2025, the price of marine steel plates has dropped by 35%.
At the same time, in the first half of 2026, China Shipbuilding's revenue was 91.53 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26%; net profit after non-attributed profit was 9.742 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 237%.
Revenue increased by 26%, and profits more than doubled. Where did the extra money come from?
From the gap between "the ship price signed three years ago" and "the cheaper steel plate today".
This gap is called cost control, contract management, and cycle judgment. It has little to do with whether you can draw a line chart or not.
At the No. 2 dock at the Hudong Zhonghua Changxing Base, a large LNG ship is undocking. This product line has been caught up by the Chinese from scratch.
Therefore, the most expensive position in the shipyard is never based on "whether you can build a ship."
The test is: do you dare to take orders at the lowest point in the industry, can you settle an account that spans three years, and can you resell the ship to someone else when the ship owner breaks the contract.
The slipway determines whether you can build it. The balance sheet determines whether you can survive after building it.
State-owned assets and private owners use two sets of algorithms
Jingjiang New Yangzi Shipyard, a 9,000 TEU container ship undocking. This is the home of private shipping companies.
They need to be discussed separately here.
On the state-owned side, China State Shipbuilding Corporation is the world's largest shipbuilding group, with total assets of over one trillion and more than 200,000 employees. Its investor is the state, not an individual.
For the chairman sent by the state, the assessment form listed the maintenance and appreciation of assets, military missions, safe production, and jobs for 200,000 people. These things have nothing to do with ship fluid mechanics and have a lot to do with "how to manage a giant organization."
So you can transfer people from elsewhere.
Xu Peng worked at Dongfang Electric for half his life, and then went to China First Heavy Industry to be the chairman. He was transferred to CSSC at the end of December 2024.
Wang Guoqiang has been with FAW for 36 years, from the deputy director of the steering gear factory to the deputy secretary of the party committee of the group. In January 2025, he became the general manager of CSSC.
Is it reasonable for a person who has managed power generation equipment to be in charge of shipbuilding? Reasonable.
Because power generation equipment and ships are the same thing on the chairman's desk: a bunch of budgets, a bunch of construction schedules, a bunch of suppliers, and a bunch of people.
On the private side, the logic is reversed.
Ren Yuanlin carried out restructuring in 1998 and invested "all bonuses and salaries". He spent more than 400,000 of his own money and raised 22 million in capital.
Chen Jianhua spent 2.11 billion in 2022 to take over the bankrupt shipyard of South Korea's STX in Dalian. When he took over, it was catching up with the global shipbuilding trough, and no one was optimistic. The shipowner did not dare to place an order, so he ordered two VLCCs himself and built them for others to see.
Of these two people, one graduated from high school and the other dropped out of school at the age of 13. They didn’t need a diploma because they lost money and no one would pay it back.
There is an old saying in economics: whoever bears the risk makes the decision.
In a state-owned enterprise, the chairman is the agent, and the client gives him an assessment form; in a private enterprise, the boss is the owner, and he only has one form, called cash flow.
If the two tables are different, the criteria for selecting people will inevitably be different. These are not who is higher and who is lower, but two different sets of algorithms.
A diploma is a signal, but it doesn’t teach you how to make money
On January 4, 2026, four 306,000-ton VLCCs were undocking at Hengli Heavy Industry No. 1 Dock on the same day. This is the first time in the history of world shipbuilding.
Are academic qualifications useful? It's useful, but you have to know what it's for.
Economist Spencer once said a truth: The diploma itself does not teach you much skills, it is a signal. It tells the employer that this person can survive four years, pass the exam, and sit in a bunch of boring things. What the employer really buys is the screening result behind this signal.
Ren Yuanlin graduated from high school, but he did three things that prevented him from passing the college entrance examination.
The first thing was to sell treasury bills. A treasury bill with a face value of 100 yuan was sold for 85 in Jiangyin and 87 in Shanghai. He saved up enough 10,000 yuan to carry it to Shanghai and sell it, earning a price difference of 200 yuan per trip. That was six or seven times his monthly salary.
The second thing is to buy English books and tapes. Because many parts of the shipyard are imported, "I can't read the instructions if I don't speak English."
The third thing is that he dared to insist on the contract. When a foreign businessman inspected the goods and wanted to default on the bill, he spent money to hire a British legal consultant from Shanghai to make the other party unable to stand up legally and give in himself.
None of these three things are on the exam paper.
But you can't say "reading is useless" because of this.
Look at the list: out of the 12 people, 10 have gone to full-time university, and 8 are from engineering backgrounds. Of the two who have never gone to university, one later studied economics and management at Radio and Television University, and the other worked himself out in the workshop as a "workshop director and foreman".
It's not that they didn't study. They didn't study in the classroom.
There is another detail that is particularly interesting.
After Lin Ou became the chairman of Jiangnan Shipbuilding, he went to study for an MBA at China Europe International Business School in 2003.
After Wang Yongliang became the general manager of the shipyard, he also studied for the CEIBS MBA in 2014.
Chen Jianliang switched from technical backbone to management, studied Fudan EMBA, and then Fudan-CityU DBA. He himself said that the School of Management helped him complete a "system upgrade", allowing him to "shift from focusing on how to do it, upgrading the dimension to thinking about why to do it."
Mei Xianzhi received a bachelor's degree in engineering from Wuhan University of Technology, and later received a master's degree in management from Zhejiang University.
After these people became successful, they went back to make up for the lessons in "decision-making".
If the diploma is useless, why do they spend this money and this time?
If the number one scholar doesn't build ships, it's not a matter of sentiment, it's a matter of price.
On June 5, 2026, two 306,000-ton VLCCs were named and delivered on the same day, each at least three months ahead of the contract delivery date.
The last question: Shipbuilding is so important, why don’t the smartest kids go here?
The answer is simple: price.
The number of people an industry can recruit does not depend on how important it is, but on how much money it can afford.
The Internet offers 300,000 yuan to fresh graduates, but finance can give it faster, and shipyards can't give it. It's not that the shipbuilding industry doesn't work hard, but that's how the price is set.
Therefore, the strongest group of people in this industry are often not the ones with the highest scores, but the ones who can stay. They have stayed in the shipyard for twenty years, from technicians to chief designers, from workshops to chairman. No university can give them this kind of qualifications.
This also explains a counter-intuitive phenomenon: China’s shipbuilding technology ceiling is highly concentrated in a few schools: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Harbin Engineering University, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Wuhan University of Technology, Dalian University of Technology, and Tianjin University. However, the origins of the leaders are much more dispersed.
Because engineers can be trained in batches, leaders can only survive the cycle.
Look at that list again.
It doesn't actually answer "Which university should I go to?"
It answers another question: Why did one of the largest manufacturing industries in this country give its top position to a group of people with incompletely matched majors?
Because things on the dock are half technology and half business. You can hire people to do technology, but you can only handle business yourself.
So if you are filling in your application, this list cannot give you a standard answer. It can only give you a reminder:
Your major determines your first job. The course you take later determines your last job.
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