At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, a series of internal and external factors led to the slow development of China's port construction and maritime transportation. Until the early 1970s, the development of ports was mainly based on technical transformation and recovery. During this period, coastal ports only added one deep-water berth on average every year, and most of them were transformed from small berths. This paper reviews the course of China's port construction under this background, which is divided into four stages. In the first stage, Premier Zhou proposed to change the appearance of ports in three years. In the second stage, the changing the port's appearance in three years large-scale port construction plan came into being, defining the objectives and specific tasks of the port construction. In the third stage, Qinhuangdao took the lead, Lianyungang and other cities accelerated construction, and the three-year task was completed ahead of schedule. President Zhou expected to complete the port construction goal of the Fifth Five Year Plan by 1980. In the fourth stage, the spirit of changing the port's appearance in three years continued to reform and opening up, and world-class ports represented by Ningbo Port and Lianyungang Port were completed.
