清王朝没有经营海洋的热忱,而是逐步走向闭关自守。因此,当1840年英国借故发动鸦片战争迫使清延割地赔款以后,中国本土思想家开始思考对中国海权的经营。魏源为此一时期的代表,他主张重新认识海洋与加强海权。而第二次鸦片战争之后,中国开始兴办洋务,李鸿章负责经营北洋重镇,其对海洋的认识为19世纪七十八年代中国官僚集团中的代表。待甲午战败,中国面临更深重的瓜分危机,总结失败的经验与重振海权成为当务之急,而改革思想家郑观应可以作为这一时期的代表。他们三人在时间排序上,可以构成晚清约50多年间中国海权思想演变与完备的一个轨迹。本文也以当时海军战略中的翘楚——马汉为一个潜在的对话对象,以19世纪最先进的海权理念来检视三位中国海权思想家的得失,并进而思考今日中国建构“21世纪海上丝绸之路”的国家战略与海权间的关联。 Qing Dynasty did not manage the enthusiasm of the sea, but gradually retreat. As a result, Chinese thinker began to ponder the operation of China’s sea power when the British Opium War in 1840 forced the Qing court to pay the indemnity. Wei Yuan was the representative of this period, and he advocated re-understanding of the sea and strengthening of sea power. After the Second Opium War, China began to set up Westernization. Li Hung-chang was responsible for running the Northern Great Powers. His understanding of the oceans represented the Chinese bureaucracy in the 1878s. Until the defeat of Jiawu in mid-August, China faces a deeper crisis of carving down the crisis and summing up the experience of failure and the resumption of the sea of ​​power. Therefore, Zheng Guanying, a reform thinker, can serve as a representative for this period. The sorting of the three of them in time can constitute a trajectory of the evolution and completeness of China’s sea power thought in about 50 years of late Qing Dynasty. This article is also a leader in the naval strategy at that time - Mahan as a potential dialogue object, with the most advanced concept of sea power in the 19th century to examine the merits and demerits of three Chinese sea thinkers, and then to think about today’s China’s construction of “21st Century Maritime Silk Road, ”the national strategy and the relationship between the sea.