Sea change

120 years after its naval defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War, the country looks to stronger maritime power, Peng Yining reports in Weihai, Shandong province.

Editor's Note: This is the seventh in a series of special reports in which our reporters will travel the length of China's 18,000-km-long coastline to detail the lives of the people whose existence is dominated, and often facilitated, by the waters that stretch from Bohai Bay in the north to the Zengmu Shoal in the south.

At the sound of a steam whistle, the troops on the People's Liberation Army navy cruiser spread white chrysanthemums and red Chinese roses on the waters, where China was defeated during the Jiawu War, or the First Sino-Japanese War, in 1894.