This dissertation uses the development of modern marine science to explore the complex relationship between science and socio-politics in socialist China. Using the case of Qingdao, the centre for marine science from the late Qing period to the present, this thesis argues that marine scientists always faced a dilemma between surviving political campaigns and developing marine science. Scientists struggled to survive attacks and persecution during Mao's era, while also trying to continue their research in marine science by any means possible. At that time, marine science was a double-edged sword: it gained them privileges and appreciation, but they were also persecuted and attacked because of their profession. This thesis follows a chronological structure. Chapters I and II explore the history of marine science from the Republican period through to the Socialist period. Chapter III examines how marine science was transformed into a socialist science. Chapter IV analyses marine science from 1956 to 1962 by expounding how marine scientists gained wider appreciation during the 'Great Leap Forward' and the 'Great Famine'. Using the example of Vietnamese students studying in Qingdao, Chapter V focuses on the higher education of marine science in Qingdao and addresses the question of how the new generation of socialist marine scientists was cultivated. The last chapter explores the period from 1966 to 1972, the time of the Cultural Revolution, and elaborates how the new 'ordinary' was built in this 'extraordinary' period.