Army Command College, Nanjing, China
JIAN ZHANG STOOD stiffly to attention, head held high, chin out, eyes straight ahead, not a muscle moving. No longer a private first class, he was now a xia shi – a junior sergeant – having been promoted for his exemplary performance on manoeuvres so soon after his recovery from wounds incurred on the Lieyu Island operation. His training and his absolute loyalty to the Party demanded he stand to attention whenever there was a visit from a senior officer or, like today, a member of the Politburo. But Junior Sergeant Jian Zhang was silently bursting with pride. Not all the members of his unit had been selected for this briefing, but he had been told that he was one of the chosen few. He was about to be initiated into secrets that he could share with no one. To do so would be treachery, the penalty death. That, too, had been made very clear to him by his commanding officer.
There were thirty of them, each at attention beside a bare desk in the lecture room, and when the order came to take their seats they sat down as one: no scraping of chairs, no coughing or clearing of throats, just a silent air of expectation. The blinds were drawn, and the lights were turned out. And then the first image appeared on the screen in front of them. It showed a modern hi-tech industrial park, a place of clean lines and green lawns. It could have been any tech park from Palo Alto to Bangalore. But it was a lot closer to home than that.
‘You have all been selected,’ began the man from Beijing. His face in shadow, he stood to one side of the screen, flanked by a senior officer of the PLA, ‘for your special qualities. These have been recognized and acknowledged by the Central Committee of the CCP. You will now be informed of the special mission that has been assigned to you when the time comes.’ Had this been a Western audience, one composed of US or British servicemen and -women, for example, there might have been some subtle murmuring at this point, maybe the odd elbow jab in the ribs. But not in Lecture Room 32 in Army Command College that day. Only an obedient silence as they awaited their orders.
‘The photograph you see,’ continued the Politburo man, ‘is of the Hsinchu Science Park. It is situated close to the city of Hsinchu in the north-west of the misguided and corrupt province of Taiwan. This place is of special interest to us for a reason. It is home to the TSMC. That stands for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. It produces 90 per cent of the world’s highest-quality semiconductors. These are the essential components for everything the world wants – mobile phones, computers, cars, planes – everything.’ He paused to take a sip of water while the room waited.
‘It had been hoped by all peace-loving nations,’ resumed the visitor from Beijing, ‘that the renegade province of Taiwan would come to its senses and quickly reunite with the motherland following their sham elections last January. By now such production facilities in Hsinchu should be serving the People’s Republic. Instead, they are serving the greedy capitalist pockets of their imperialist masters in Washington. This must be corrected.’ He paused again. A cadre of recruits jogged past outside the building with an accompanying chorus of martial chants. Now another image filled the screen, a photograph of a military airbase, with hardened shelters that had camouflage-patterned walls and grass-covered roofs. The silhouette of a city quivered in the heat beyond.
‘Hsinchu airbase,’ said the lecturer, ‘is the first line of defence for the TSMC. A decision has been taken by the Central Committee that this is a cancer that must be cut out, an obstacle that must be neutralized, in order, when the time comes, for the People’s Liberation Army to achieve its rightful goals. You –’ He jabbed a finger towards his audience. ‘– you will be playing your part in this, in serving your great nation. In fact, you will be staking a place in history itself. Yes! Because following the appropriate rehearsals and training, your task will be to capture and take control of Hsinchu airbase. When they come to write the history of how the province of Taiwan was joyfully returned to the motherland it will not be forgotten that it was you, yes, all of you in this room, who struck the first blow, in enabling us to become the greatest economic power on Earth.’ And now it was his turn to stand to attention, facing the front, as he shouted the slogan circulated by the Central Office of the CCP to mark the anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.
‘No person and no force can stop the march of the Chinese people towards better lives!’
And, as one, the lecture hall rose to its feet, Zhang included, bellowing the words as they erupted in applause.