Designed by the China Warship Design Institute (formerly the Seventh Academy of the Ministry of National Defense), the ships were built at Jiangnan Shipyard. No.112 Harbin was the first Luhu destroyer followed by No.113 Qingdao. The chief designer is academician Mr. Pan Jingfu (潘镜芙). The class is said to be the first indigenous Chinese warship design approaching modern standards, a significant improvement over the earlier Luda class. The Luhu made extensive use of foreign technologies that were accessible to the PRC prior to the Tiananmen Square incident of 1989. These included French-made radars and fire-control systems and the General Electric LM2500 gas turbine engines from the US, two of which power each ship.