East Sea Fleet
Xu served as deputy chief of staff of the PLAN's East Sea Fleet from 1999 to 2002, and commander of the Zhoushan Naval Base from 2002 to 2005. From December 2005 to August 2006 he was deputy chief of staff of the PLAN. In August 2006, he was promoted to commander of the East Sea Fleet, and concurrently deputy commander of the Nanjing Military Region. He attained the rank of vice-admiral in July 2007. In December 2009, he was appointed deputy commander of the PLAN. He retired from active service in December 2014 after reaching the mandatory retirement age, and was replaced by Jiang Weilie.