China is in the critical period of implementing the strategic deployment of the 21st Century Ocean "Silk Road". The development of ocean optical technology is an important direction to support the country′s medium and long-term development strategy. Ocean laser remote sensing technology is one of the important research fields in ocean optics. As a new active remote sensing technology developing rapidly in recent years, lidar has been widely used in the field of ocean laser remote sensing because of its high precision and high spatial-temporal resolution. In this paper, based on Brillouin scattering lidar and ocean imaging lidar, the research progress of ocean laser remote sensing technology and its application in water parameter measurement, underwater target detection and laser remote sensing of ocean topography in China were introduced.