Imagined Enemies by John Lewis Litai Xue

Author:John Lewis,Litai Xue
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780804779463
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2013-05-31T04:00:00+00:00

The Wannan Base

We can illustrate aspects of base development by examining the history of the base in the mountains of Anhui and Jiangxi provinces.59 Starting in the mid-1960s and continuing into the mid-1990s, the Second Artillery dispatched several engineering regiments to build the launch-site infrastructure. As noted for all bases, the Wannan Base (Base 52 or originally numbered Unit 80302) reports only to Beijing, and the commander of the Nanjing Military Region, where 52 is located, has no authority to supervise the base’s routine activities. By the early 1990s, the base contained at least two brigades in Anhui’s Qimen and Shitai counties,60 and reliable evidence suggests that the CMC had added another brigade to the base by the mid-1990s. However, even the experts debate the actual number and composition of the brigades currently under Base 52 because of their shifting assignments and newly deployed conventionally armed missiles following the worsening tensions in the Taiwan Strait in 1995–96 and in 2001.

Security is tight at the base, and contact with the local population is minimal. For example, the base mail cannot be delivered but must be picked up from a nearby post office, and without special approval, no uncleared person is allowed to visit the base’s restricted military zones. No one, not even the base commander, is permitted in any quarter without an authorizing stamp on his identity card. More modern security measures were also gradually introduced. Around 2001, the Second Artillery installed electronic monitoring units and alarms at this and all other bases and stationed many Special Service Teams with guard dogs to patrol the base areas.61

The restricted areas around the base are among the most closely guarded military zones in the country. The nearby offices of state security have been given precedence in obtaining money, personnel, and surveillance equipment, and base security measures include the use of informants recruited by base security and the local state security offices. These citizen watchdogs report on strangers loitering near restricted military areas, visiting local families, or taking pictures. Security guards are authorized to detain and interrogate such “intruders” and to hustle them out of the area for any reason or place them under arrest. On the other hand, base engineers have been allowed to provide TV and electronic repair services for nearby residents as a sideline business, and it is possible that the severe code of discipline breaks down in other informal ways.

Security procedures at the bases become especially demanding around the warhead storage depots. Only college graduates who are granted top-secret clearances can serve in the nuclear warhead sections, and special code locks are used on the depots and weapons themselves.62 Once aboard, the soldiers assigned to these sections have accepted a lifetime commitment. Thereafter, they can never go abroad, and their domestic travel and communications even with relatives are rigidly monitored. The base commander once admonished them, “Your mission is glorious. . . . You must work and live at the base forever. Even your memorial services will be held here.”

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