Ding Yiping

Ding Yiping (; born February 1951) is a retired vice-admiral (zhong jiang) of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) of China. He served as Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of the PLAN, and Commander of the North Sea Fleet. He was groomed to be the candidate for PLAN Commander, but was demoted following the fatal submarine 361 accident in 2003.

Early life and career Ding Yiping was born in February 1951 in Xiangxiang, Hunan Province. He graduated from PLA Naval Command Academy. He is the son of Lieutenant General Ding Qiusheng (丁秋生), the founding political commissar of PLAN's North Sea Fleet, and therefore considered a "princeling".

Ding enlisted in the PLA Navy in March 1968, and joined the Chinese Communist Party in February 1970. He had comparable command experience as Admiral Wu Shengli but was six years younger, and became an alternate Central Committee member five years before Wu. However, Ding was penalized following a fatal accident with the Type 035 Ming-class submarine 361 on April 16, 2003.

Publications Ding is one of the more prolific writers in the PLA Navy leadership. In 2000, he published the book World Naval History (世界海军史; Beijing: Haichao Press). He was deputy editor of the 2006 book The Science of Naval Training (Beijing: Academy of Military Science Press, 2006). He has also published a number of articles, including one on the importance of civil-military relations in the journal Culture in Barracks (2007).