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Abstract Sea area of operations is not only a fundamental issue of naval strategy, but also a significant component of the national foreign strategy. After 1949, China's naval strategy has experienced three stages: coastal defense, offshore defense, and the combination of offshore defense and open seas protection. Literally, the most salient feature in the evolution of China's naval strategy is the expansion of sea area of operations. Based on the history of the evolution of China's naval strategy over the past 60 years, this paper tries to divide China's sea area of operations into four parts: offshore waters, middle seas, open seas and the ocean, and then analyzes their different strategic value. According to which, the paper argues that the driving forces for China to extend sea area of operations mainly demonstrate in three levels: military level, economic and the political level. However, in the process to expand sea area of operations, China is confronted with containment from three aspects, the strategic geography of the sea, the land security situation, and the geo⁃strategy of America and its alliance system in Asia. Currently, in the expansion of sea area of operations, China should keep regional defense as the essential strategy, and then prudently and gradually extend it to open seas and the ocean.
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2017, Vol. 25 
