ABSTRACT
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was born out of insubordination. Not just a minor insubordination either, but the mutiny and defection of a major portion of the Nationalist navy. This means that the PLAN of today is perhaps the only major navy in the world to trace its organizational roots to the fruits of a naval mutiny. For good reason, the PRC leaders would like to ignore this embarrassing past. However, the organizational and structural effects of this historical legacy continue to exert an enormous influence on the PLAN to this very day.
