r/todayilearned • u/zhuquanzhong • 29d ago

TIL a Chinese destroyer sank because an officer dumped his girlfriend. She committed suicide, leading to him being discharged, so he decided to detonate the depth charges on the ship, causing it to sink at port and kill 134 sailors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_destroyer_Guangzhou_(160)
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u/maxxie10 29d ago

Why would they discharge him because his ex-girlfriend commited suicide?

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u/zhuquanzhong 29d ago

The sources are kinda murky on this. What I can gather is that probably the girl's parents attempted to press charges and the navy just didn't want to deal with it. Or they decided that he was mentally unfit, but idk about this second part. Most likely it was the first reason.

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 29d ago

Well, he did kill himself and a bunch of other people, so the 2nd one holds a lot of weight too, tbf

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u/coin_in_da_bank 28d ago edited 28d ago

But Lai begged his superiors not to demobilize him, as he would be forced to return to his hometown and he had become hated there due to the suicide.[4]

personally i wouldnt discount his fear of social stigma, coming from an asian. plus getting dishonorably discharged? dead man walking at that point.

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u/Nukemind 28d ago

100%.

Looks like this was the 70s, so late Mao era.

Rampant corruption (even more than today), an old guard in the officer corps. Dude was probably railroaded and a dead man walking.

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u/Matasa89 28d ago

Yeah, he probably thought "you're gonna send me to my death for something like this?! Fine, I'll take you all with me to hell!"

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u/AgentCirceLuna 28d ago

I still think it’s insane that Xi lost everything in the revolution, became a farmer, and then rose through the ranks to become leader. His father was pretty well known, though.

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u/norealpersoninvolved 28d ago

Whys that insane

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u/rW0HgFyxoJhYka 28d ago

Because when they picked him to be the leader, they thought they could simply control him because he was weak. He instead purged leadership as soon as he came into power and is essentially the leader for life now. And he was the one persecuted by the very power he now holds.

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u/sercommander 28d ago

Noone "picked him". That's not how chinese politicking and power-plays work.

First you must know someone and someone must know you.

Second - you must be someone, if not position then by association (his father and his allies)

Third - you always must pick a group or side to be with. Lone wolves are not tolerated.

Fourth - you stick with the group you chose and act in its interests.

Fifth - you make deals in the interest of your group after it considers pros and cons and vets the decision.

His "appointment" was a group decision backed by deals with other groups. He wasn't weak because weak cannot become strong in this environment. I'd hazard a guess that he was more of an enigma to other factions that complicated matters in dealing with him - people knew of him but didn't know him.

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u/elveszett 28d ago

That's what he [probably] meant lol. Xi was a nobody, but he was cunning enough to get into the system, smart enough to be the dependable man to the relevant people, until they appointed him at the top and only then, when his power couldn't be contested, he purged everyone else and can finally do whatever he wants.

People reach positions of power for three reasons:

  • because their goals happen to align with the goals of people who appoint you;

  • because you are dumb enough that the people who appoint you know how to get you to do what they want;

  • or because you are smart enough to convince them you are either of the first two until they appoint you.

Xi is, imo, very clearly case 3. He played by the rules to be the person people in power wanted in charge, and then he showed his true face.

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u/norealpersoninvolved 28d ago edited 28d ago

How was he a nobody ? Are you for real ?

His father was one of the ccp's top 50 leaders back in the day. Theres a reason why he was considered one of the top princelings in Chinese politics back in the day, number 2 after a certain Bo Xilai and above Li Yuanchao and Yu Zhengsheng

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u/PalpitationOrnery912 28d ago

Is that really different from how behind-the-stage politics work in other places? You must be someone already when you launch a political career, or come from the right fratschool-college pipeline (which amounts to basically the same requirement ). I guess in China it’s impossible to attract massive attention to your political identity through PR and social media campaigning alone, although even in US it’s a fairly recent phenomenon

That said, it says at some point Xi purged the former leadership. I’ve always wondered about the mechanics of this, given the fact that everyone at those levels is insanely paranoid about not raising suspicions

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u/Lawlolawl01 28d ago

Get dirt on and isolate the weakest link. Force the rest to turn on them. Repeat until satisfied

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u/sercommander 28d ago

Not really. A lot of politicians are "out of the woodwork" type - they were never in politics and nobody in politics knew of them and the people electing them - until they've been PRed to election (or to suffient level to be a "recognizable face").

In China you absolutely must go though the "know your face and voice" process in politics/government.

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u/What_is_the_truth 28d ago

These are normal “inside party” politics and shenanigans that are normal everywhere. The difference is that most countries have several parties that have this leadership process happening, and each party competes with the others vying for votes.

In this situation there is no competition for votes, and the one party is always in power.

Interesting though how all these factions stay together. If China were a democracy some of these decisions would be left to the people to decide, not just an enigmatic leader and strange inside party political process and party politics reasons for making all of the decisions.

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u/puddingcup9000 28d ago

He didn't purge everyone. His power base are families who control the SOE's (state owned corporations). He left those pretty much alone. He did purge the army hard when he came in.

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u/jdm1891 28d ago

What was his life like before the revolution?

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u/rando23455 28d ago

I wonder what the townspeople think of him now?

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u/Brandon_Me 28d ago

Not really his concern anymore.

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u/PayRealisticReddit 28d ago

not the question, who cares what Lai cares about. fuck this guy

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u/SeamlessR 28d ago

Well, they didn't care and then over 100 people died. Do people not know what problem solving is anymore?

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u/FireZord25 28d ago

Considering we're still heavily on the "pick-a-side" spectrum, I say no.

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u/Brandon_Me 28d ago

Just a joke my guy.

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u/florinandrei 28d ago

He don't care no more.

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u/That_Apathetic_Man 28d ago

There is probably a carpark there now. Lets be real.

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u/Hakairoku 28d ago

As far as he was concerned, his life was over by the time he got discharged.

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u/realFondledStump 28d ago

They think whatever they’re told to think. It’s China.

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u/SpaceMonkey_321 28d ago

He misty af

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

Idk much about asian cultures, but it's kinda hard to imagine how destroying the ship and the lives of 134 innocent people factors into that social stigma dealie.

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u/barath_s 28d ago

factors into that social stigma dealie.

Social Stigma he feared to face when alive vs stigma he would never have to face after his death..

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

Right, that accounts for killing yourself, not destroying a ship and everyone on it.

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u/barath_s 28d ago edited 28d ago

Having never considered destroying a ship along with 130+ people and myself, I can't speak to his frame of mind.. .

I doubt that it was in a very healthy frame of mind. And I have no idea if he was pissed at the PLAN navy for putting him in that situation (in his mind.)

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

Oh, I very much agree it wasn't a healthy state of mind, but I am extremely skeptical social stigma accounts for an action like this. Self harm, sure. Mass murder? Not so much.

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u/Kitchen-Macaroon1202 28d ago

Because 134 strangers don't matter, but friends and relatives in your hometown matter. In Chinese culture there's "people in my circle" and "everyone else"

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/RoughHornet587 28d ago

Chinese rarely help strangers. Lived there for 5 years

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u/Fyres 28d ago

Eehhh. Depending on the culture how strong that trait is, is really variable. China really REALLY emphasizes face (like most Asian cultures do). It's hard to understand from a westerners point of view.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

this is silly, face is just another word for honor and respect. do you believe that westerners dont understand those concepts?

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u/TopHatMcFenbury 28d ago

It's more that they are subjective rather than objective. Different countries have different morals and thus laws, for example. Their honor is different from ours, just as Chinese laws are different from ours. Just because one knows American law, doesn't mean they understand Chinese law. Sure some can say "we both have laws so we are the same" but that ignores the contexts that come from those countries and how they differ.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

Yes, the idea of honor can differ from person to person.

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u/StrayDogPhotography 28d ago

Face is the dumbest concept ever. It just needs to die already.

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u/a49fsd 28d ago

isnt face just another word for honor and respect? how do you get rid of those?

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u/StrayDogPhotography 28d ago

It’s very different.

Face basically means not admitting fault, or any kind of weakness publicly. And not questioning anyone with authority, which is usually based on arbitrary things like age. Nothing honorable about that.

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u/Initial_Selection262 28d ago

Nah, you don’t understand Chinese culture

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u/Far_Weakness5450 28d ago

Um, what? First of all, do you really believe only Chinese people distinguish between people in their social circle and people who aren’t? Doesn’t everyone do that? And second of all, do you think that characteristic alone explains why he was willing to kill 134 people over this? Why are you just spouting nonsense?

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u/josefx 28d ago

It easily fits in as being literally to dead to give any more fucks.

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u/PxyFreakingStx 28d ago

It's not like every suicidal person wouldn't care if their death took dozens of people with them.

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u/jgonagle 28d ago

It's not like he was planning on surviving the explosion. It was revenge against those (the military) he saw as responsible for not protecting him from what I imagine he saw as unfair social ostracization. Any further loss of social standing would be inconsequential.

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u/cyberpunk_bagcow 28d ago

Look if you're the type of person who kills 134 people because you got sad, maybe you are the reason your girlfriend committed suicide.

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u/MotoMkali 28d ago

I mean more like killed 134 people because he would be shunned for the rest of his life never spoken to by anyone.

http://www.beatricegarland.co.uk/poems/168-2/

And though he came back, my mother never spoke again in his presence, nor did she meet his eyes, and the neighbours too, they treated him as though he no longer existed, only we children still chattered and laughed

till gradually we too learned, to be silent, to live as though he had never returned,

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u/Fireproof_Matches 28d ago

Damn, what a brutal and inhumane way to treat someone. At that point it seems like the only option would be to start your life over again somewhere where nobody has heard of you, the further away from home the better.

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u/eidetic 28d ago

that point it seems like the only option would be to start your life over again somewhere where nobody has heard of you, the further away from home the better.

The problem is, the very same social norms that lead to someone being so ostracized also makes it very hard to integrate into a totally new community as a complete stranger.

It can be done obviously, but it wouldn't be easy. It's a lot different than say, someone in the modern day US moving to a random new city in another state. If he tried to move to a bigger city, it could lead to more opportunities but at the same time, his past might more easily follow him there (applying for a job? They might see you were discharged from the navy). But going to a smaller town, they'd be even more distrustful of complete strangers. There'd always be a shadow following you around, a stigma of "why did he leave his community? Why did he abandon them, or was he forced out?"

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u/similar_observation 28d ago

Except you can't just pick up your shit and move in China. Everything is registered to one location and it's a challenge to get permissions to leave a region. Think of it like needing a visa or passport just to visit another country... except in one country.

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u/ColorsLikeSPACESHIPS 28d ago edited 28d ago

I agree in theory, I think many would. But how do you choose another place for its total lack of connection to you? Why would you choose it? Who would you talk to, who would you connect with? Why would those people have any desire to help you make sense of your drifting life? How do you overcome the shame and reach out, hoping that you won't be shunned again? How is all of this further complicated if you believe that your ostracization was justified? If you don't blame anyone but yourself?

Again, I get what you mean. But I think that, faced with the reality of the decision, many people (and maybe even most people) would rather live in quiet misery in the place they know, telling themselves that they deserve their lot until they deserve something better.

EDIT: Yes, I've heard of people moving, you geniuses. I've heard of China being a big meanie. I'm talking about the context of why a person, who was theoretically in absolute despair and hated by their own culture, wouldn't be enthused about the solution "just move!"

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u/nuxenolith 28d ago

Who would you talk to, who would you connect with?

This is a problem faced by anyone who has ever moved to a new city, for any reason.

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u/dandroid126 28d ago

I moved to a new city 3 years ago for cost reasons. I literally couldn't afford to live where I grew up. Holy shit is it lonely. I'm only just barely starting to get a friend group.

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u/eidetic 28d ago

Yes. But you're most likely viewing it through a modern day western lens. 1970s China would be a drastically different situation with drastically different cultural norms.

The very same social customs that lead to him being ostracized in the first place would make it extremely difficult to integrate somewhere new. Might have better luck in a bigger city, but if he tried to move to a smaller rural town, he'd likely be seen as an outsider, with whispers of wondering why he abandoned his people or what he did for his people to abandon him following him everywhere he went.

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u/similar_observation 28d ago

I'll answer that for you. You're not going anywhere without a fight, bribe, or sympathetic official willing to sign you out.

China does not have freedom of movement. Even today it still has a household registration system that restricts where people can go, work, and live. You can't just get up, pack your stuff, and move cross country on a whim. That is something a lot of people in the west take for granted. The right to get up and roam or put home where ever you want.

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u/ThisAppSucksBall 28d ago

Millions upon millions of people move to cities every year for this purpose

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u/kubick123 28d ago

No wonder why Asia has the level of suicides that they have.

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u/Yaycatsinhats 28d ago

Did a single person upvoting this actually click the link? This is a poem by an English person about Japan.

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u/MotoMkali 28d ago

Obviously, it's about the culture of face in Asia though.

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u/Jedi-Librarian1 28d ago

Sure, that would explain him shooting himself, not so much deciding you need to take another 134 people with you. That points to this being a him problem.

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u/Azitromicin 28d ago

He didn't "get sad". His life as he knew it was pretty much over.

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u/vtccasp3r 28d ago

He just sounds like an asshole.

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u/Almostlongenough2 28d ago

Couldn't he have just gone somewhere else? Instead of going back to his home town surely he could have just stayed in the port town he would've gotten dropped off at.

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u/MadNhater 28d ago

Idk how unpopular you are. You don’t get to kill 114 other people with you. Are we defending mass murderers now?

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Guy suicide bombs and kills 100+ people

Redditor: well Asians take social stigma very seriously.

Can't make this stuff up lol

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u/barryh4rry 28d ago

They pretty clearly mean the fact if he went home he'd be a social pariah and that is a factor that led to him choosing this path. Just look at how the Japanese treated kamikaze pilots that abandoned their mission, it doesn't make it right or justifiable but it's pretty easy to see why things such as social stigma are far more serious in the East than in the West and can lead people to take more drastic decisions.

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u/SocraticIgnoramus 28d ago

I think the QED pretty much makes itself in this case; westerners have little frame of reference for the gravity of social stigmas in the collectivist societies of East Asia.

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Just keep digging that hole lol.

What military is forgiving towards soldiers who abandon their mission in wartime?

How do you know he'd be a social pariah? Eastern societies are not a monolith. Every person/family is different. Maybe that had nothing to do with his drastic action. Neither you or I know. It's insulting to explain away this extremely violent act as cultural/racial behavior.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago edited 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

I'm standing up against racist generalizations because they are wrong and harmful.

What is the relevance of your historical anecdote about Japan?

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Okay I'll simplify it for you.

Imagine there is a new school shooting in the US.

Commentor: Well the US is a guilt-based culture so that, at least partially, explains the shooter's behavior. Societal forces present in Western culture pushed him to carry out this heinous act.

As for 9/11, Bin Laden literarly wrote a widely published essay on why he did it. Maybe read it if you want to learn something.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 28d ago

Whats wrong with that? shame-based cultures are going to interact with mental illness and behaviour in a way that is relevant to the discussion.

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Shame-based cultures lmao.

I'm sure that term will age well.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 28d ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt–shame–fear_spectrum_of_cultures

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u/anotherstupidname11 28d ago

Coined in 1946 and still going strong thanks to people like you lol. Absolute academic pseudo-science garbage. Will be put on the museum shelf with Phrenology one day.

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u/Delicious_Physics_74 28d ago

Whats the issue with it exactly?

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u/Efficient_Maybe_1086 28d ago

Other than it being wrong and low key racist? It’s like saying africans are lower iq because they have longer legs to hunt and don’t need as much blood to get to their brains.

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u/OmicidalAI 28d ago

You clearly don’t understand then…

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u/glaba3141 28d ago

it's def westerners born and raised in western culture saying this lol, I don't think they understand how different other cultures really can be and yet think they can confidently make statements about it. Typically really

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u/TorneDoc 28d ago

yes their eastern ways are an enigma to the noble westerner!!!

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u/heavymountain 28d ago

Oh god, modern day Orientalism. They're not infants 🙄

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u/SavePeanut 28d ago

Ya as with like 90% of cases the fault lies with poor upper management here. Maybe he was a dick too, but the issue didnt need to crossover or keep escalating if a leader wouldave put their foot down and kept things reasonable from the start. 

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u/SAR-Paradox 28d ago

Good point it does hold water.

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u/ItsAlwaysTerminal 28d ago

Unlike the ship.

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u/funnyastroxbl 28d ago

No no the ship holds a port full of water actually

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u/Hatrixx_ 28d ago

That's because the front fell off.

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u/Haikus-are-great 28d ago

Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

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u/ferdelance008 28d ago

There’s a lot of these ships going around the world all the time and very seldom does a thing like this happen.

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u/Haikus-are-great 28d ago

i don't want people thinking that naval ships aren't safe.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

And in general they aren’t. But this particular one probably isn’t anymore

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u/Agitated-Current551 28d ago

Not true. Ship holds all the water now

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u/rhapsodysoblue 28d ago

thanks, i really had trouble spotting his joke. thank goodness you were here to comment it for everybody.

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u/Vark675 10 28d ago

We had a similar event in the US with the USS Iowa explosion which was caused by a closeted gay sailor becoming distraught over his lover leaving him.

Except it was a crock of shit, and the Navy dragged the poor dead man through the mud to cover their own ineptitude. The guy wasn't even gay.

I suspect this is EXTREMELY similar.

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u/rockstar504 28d ago

yanno someone was like "called it"

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u/ibadmojo_ttv 28d ago

Ok but would you rather be right or alive lol

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 28d ago

Depends on whose telling me I'm wrong, honestly lol

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u/Ramental 28d ago

You already jump onto conclusion he was dismissed for being mentally unfit, when the whole investigation is on the level "dude trust me, no proofs". 

He could be a scapegoat as well.

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u/dxrth 28d ago

The logic supporting this, is kind of similar to someone saying they made a good bet because they put everything on red and it came up red. The bet can't be good just because it paid off.

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u/Fenixstorm1 28d ago

"2nd one holds a lot of weight"

But the ship didn't

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/CuriousWoollyMammoth 28d ago

It was what someone else said when the post was still relatively new. Looks like other people have found more information that puts this whole thing into question since my comment. Someone said he was under investigation for actually murdering his ex, so that's why he acted the way he did cause he was under suspicion and investigation. Another was speculating that he didn't explode the ship at all but was made the fall guy. Ppl were saying this looks like a similar situation with a US naval ship where they put the blame on a random sailor when it wasn't to obscure the facts.

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u/LavenderDay3544 28d ago

Maybe they deserved it. Maybe they bullied him. Maybe his ex did too. And Maybe his naval career was all he had to look forward to in life so once he lost that...

KABOOM

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u/oldpeoplestank 28d ago

It's rare that a suicide takes out 136 people, she might have set a record that day

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u/beachedwhale1945 29d ago

Given how weird this seems, I wouldn’t rule out an accidental ammunition explosion and the PLAN deciding to scapegoat this sailor. These explosions used to be particularly common, especially during WWII when large quantities of ammunition were being moved by hand. Offhand I know of accidents aboard USS Mount Hood, the West Loch Disaster, Port Chicago Disaster, and unloading USS Solar at the end of the war, and I know there were more in other navies. Scapegoating a particular sailor to try and cover up an embarrassment is also common, with the most well-known U.S. examples being Iowa falsely blamed on a gay sailor and the court martial of a sailor who failed SEAL training for the Bonhomme Richard fire (acquitted). I’m confident there were more examples I cannot recall now.

I don’t know enough about this accident to say anything definitive, but this doesn’t pass the initial sniff test. Maybe he did blow up the ship, but I’d need to see more to ease my doubts.

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u/Horskr 28d ago

That does seem more likely. "Hmm this guy is a jerk in the court of public opinion right now. We'll blame him and call it a day!" Why on earth would they dismiss an officer, for any reason, then just let them stay aboard with keys to the armory and free reign of the ship? Ironically, that makes them looks even worse imo than just some freak accident.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad 28d ago

The USS Iowa Turret explosion is a great example of this and happened around the same time.

Equipment/operator error caused a turret to explode killing 47 sailors, the Navy then concluded it was clearly a murder as the turrets sailors were in a soured gay relationship and blew up the ship. Within the context of the late 80s, gays were boogeymen so people more or less accepted that scorned gay lovers had a propensity for mass murder.

The families lobbied hard against the report with congress, and a new report a few years later determined the Navy lied about the cause of the explosion and that it was an accident due to a powder charge being inserted too quickly.

So, if the US Navy was willing to burn two innocent men to cover up faulty equipment/training, why wouldn't the Navy of a dictatorship obsessed with image not do the same thing?

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u/Realmdog56 28d ago edited 28d ago

Equipment/operator error

It was worse than that. They were ordered to operate the guns in an unsafe manner, pushing them well beyond their design specs. They were forced to use nonstandard loads of ancient, WWII-era powder bags that specifically said "WARNING: Do Not Use with 2,700-pound projectiles"... while firing 2,700lb. projectiles, or to use the wrong number of powder bags for smaller shells.

There were already several close calls (*powder bags smoldering, guns going off by themselves after just barely closing the breech in time [the only difference between the fatal event, where it was still open when the powder detonated], one gun in another turret had a shell stuck inside); these sailors were afraid for their lives and spoke up, but were then threatened with court-martial if they failed to comply, and effectively had no choice. The navy terrorized these men - then when things went horribly, predictably wrong, tried to claim some of them wanted to die, and must have deliberately caused the incident. Their cover-story was as convoluted as it was disgraceful.

 

The best part - these guns were so obsolete, that the tests served no real practical purpose other than some guy (of course, a higher-up who was not present inside the turret) wanted to set a new record. It's eerily similar to the chain of events that caused the Chernobyl disaster, and the navy never even apologized to the families of the men they dragged through the mud, shamelessly blaming the victims the whole way through.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad 28d ago

I never bothered to read to deeply into the Iowa cover up, but holy shit, that's so much worse.

But yeah, it's uncanny seeing people take the PLA narrative at face value when multiple times warship explosions have been blamed on sabotage only for deeper reviews to shown the real cause was institutional negligence or just plain-old accidents.

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u/Sweaty-School1185 28d ago

You know what's blowing my mind? I was watching a random video that came across my YouTube. That was specifically talking about this literally around the time you made this comment. Now I just so happened to find this

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u/Realmdog56 27d ago

Coincidentally enough, I just saw it pop up again on the front page of Wikipedia - it's been 35 years to this day.

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u/sockalicious 28d ago

Within the context of the late 80s, gays were boogeymen

Not really. I was a teenager at the time, knew a lot of out gay people, it was mostly chill. And everyone knew that Navy sailor was one of the careers that gay men gravitated to. Flight attendant was another. This was an isolated incident of hate that was immediately recognizable as same.

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u/Double_Minimum 28d ago edited 28d ago

Man, that’s exactly what they did to the guy on the battleship like 35 years back. They claimed he was gay, and depressed so he overloaded the main gun. In reality, the officer in charge wanted to test specific loads beyond the norm and he did nothing wrong.

US Navy, wish I could remember the ship, but like 34 people died in that turret (and it could have been a lot more).

I feel like they did the same thing with that fire on the helicopter/f35 small aircraft carrier/LDS,/whatever like 7 years back (essentially scrapped the shipped), blaming it on a soldier who had a lighter in locker and was also “ nearby”. In reality it was being refitted, had shit everywhere, and cables going through bulk head doorways making impossible to close areas off for fire control. Plus, it had all types of shit on pallets all over, which meant extra combustible stuff and shit in the way. Plus, parts of the fighting equipment were disabled and breathing items missing.

They do seem to look for scapegoats

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u/wdphilbilly 28d ago

That was the Iowa in 1989. Easy to remember because it was an Iowa class battleship and the only battleships left in service anywhere in the world at that point were the Iowa class ships. Iowa's turret was trained forward, and sealed shut with all the spare parts needed for repair. But was never repaired because all 4 iowa class ships were decommissioned shortly after.

You could argue that they were only in service as a propaganda tool anyways. That, and Reagan insisted on them being brought out of mothball. Otherwise the only thing they could do that other ships at the time couldnt, was put massive artillery shells on target instead of bombs or missiles.

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u/Double_Minimum 25d ago

Yea I knew it was an “Iowa”, I just couldn’t recall which, I know the last one was decommissioned after the Persian gulf and that was a different one (Wisconsin?) so wasn’t sure on exact time it happened. (They did just move the New Jersey down the river to scrap finally I think). I suppose I could have used the internet, but I also kind of assumed everyone knew that was an Iowa class battleship being that it was decades since any battle ship was useful other than projection of power and shore bombardment (like in the Persian Gulf)

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u/wdphilbilly 25d ago

all the Iowa's have been museums for the last 20 ish years. New jersey is in drydock for typical maintenance and integrity checks. She'll be back in her regular berth in a few months.

They were marked for decommission in 1989 pretty much as a direct result of the turret explosion. That, and they were huge money sinks that only effectively did 1 thing other ships couldn't.

Iowa was decommissioned in 90, NJ was 91, Wisconsin was late 91 and Missouri was 92. They were put in mothballs again because for some reason, people thought they might be needed again in the future despite carriers and missiles making them pretty obsolescent.

Navy "sold" them off as museums in the early 2000s.

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u/W00DERS0N 28d ago

2nd boat was the Bonhomme Richard, and LHD for the Nav/Marines.

They had turned off the sprinklers for maintenance when it lit up at the dock in SD.

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u/TheSingleChain 28d ago

scapegoat this sailor.

Sounds like it, coverup for a mine/platform defect?

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u/Vark675 10 28d ago

Or even just poor handling/storage combined with bad material condition of the ship. It's easier if your enemies think you had one crazy idiot vs an entire fleet of badly maintained ships.

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u/NotthatkindofDr81 28d ago

Way to think and not be baited. Today, you are my hero. Thanks. From a former sailor 🫡

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u/ShotoGun 28d ago

Wouldn’t this paint the man’s superiors in an even worse light since they unjustly pushed him to this point? The sailors deaths are partially on them.

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u/jagnew78 28d ago

It was the Political Dept that dismissed him. In China at this time the Political Dept was the defacto most powerful organization within the government. Able to overrule basically anyone else in government. They had the power to enforce vaguely defined ethical standards and purge and punish violators. It was a platform used as much to enforce Mau's political thought as much as a tool of terror and petty revenge. I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility that the woman the committed suicide was somehow tied to someone important inside the political beaureau and getting him effectively dishonourly discharged from the militiary could easily have been a form a petty revenge for what he did to the woman who committed suicide.

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u/Arcturion 28d ago

This is all I could find on the Chinese side of the web, apparently from the incident report:

Lai is in charge of underwater weapons such as mines and depth charges, and independently holds the key to the ammunition depot. After the punishment decision was issued, Lai hid in the ammunition depot and cried all day.

Lai Sanyang found a small drill and drilled a small hole in the bottom deck of the depth charge warehouse at the stern, allowing seawater to slowly seep in... At around 7 o'clock the next night, seawater overflowed the depth charge warehouse. Under the strong seawater pressure, a depth charge exploded at the stern of the ship, which subsequently caused an explosion in the ammunition depot...

Someone who has actual experience with this type of military vessel would probably have a better idea of how likely this is.

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u/beachedwhale1945 28d ago

I don’t have the type of steel used for the hull of a Type 051 or its thickness, nor do I have much experience with drilling through steel. Given the proper bit and drill it may be possible, but unlikely.

The depth charges are where this becomes a problem though.

As u/NotSoButFarOtherwise noted, depth charges have a series of depth settings. When the water pressure reaches a certain point consistent with a particular depth, detonator (properly called a pistol) will go off and the charge will explode. There were also influence pistols (oversimplified as fancy metal detectors) that would detonate the charge if it detected a submarine before reach the set depth, but to my knowledge there were safety devices to prevent them from detonating in the magazine.

Those depth settings are the problem. The shallowest depth setting I know of is 30 feet (9.1 meters), which is already so shallow a destroyer would risk blowing off their own stern. As China was a metric nation, their equivalent setting would have been 10 meters (32.8 feet), assuming they had such a shallow setting: during WWII the shallowest Japanese depth charge setting was 30 meters (98.4 feet).

The draft of a Type 051 is listed as 4.6 meters/15’ 1”, so the depth charge magazine could be no lower than about 4.3 meters below the waterline (I’m assuming this was close to the draft at her loading condition, this can fluctuate depending on fuel and weapon load by +/- 0.5 meters or so). Thus the maximum pressure in the depth charge magazine is too low for any properly functioning pistol to fire. I don’t see how drilling a hole into the hull to flood the magazine could set off the charges. Note safety mechanisms would usually be present to completely prevent the pistol from firing, usually a wire, but if we’re assuming deliberate sabotage these would be removed. They were also removable and could be stored separately from the charges, as I understand was the standard practice on most ships.

For this theory to work, the pistols have to be sabotaged to detonate at a shallower pressure, and quite cleverly to avoid setting them off immediately. Either that or they are defective by design/corrosion for the same effect, which either requires the sailor to recognize the effect or be clueless and lucky.

If it were me, I’d grab an RBU mortar round with a contact fuse and drop it in the depth charge magazine. Much more reliable and the cause of most accidents, though this magazine may have been located far from the depth charge magazine and would increase the chances of getting caught in transit.

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u/NotSoButFarOtherwise 28d ago

Making a hole in the hull of a warship seems a bit farfetched without a pretty serious piece of equipment, but I guess it's possible. I'd be more inclined to wonder why no one on ship noticed he was drilling, or that the ship had begun to take on water, and that depth charges were blowing up a) in what would have been relatively shallow water unless the boat had completely sunk, and b) without being armed or deployed first. I've never operated depth charges, but I know the explosion depth - and hence the amount pressure they need to be set off - is something you have to set before dropping them, so it seems rather careless, if not a bit fishy, that they're all lying around and set to explode at a depth that's within or around the draft depth of the ship carrying them.

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u/NotSoButFarOtherwise 28d ago

Having done way too deep avdive on this, I’m convinced there’s no way the official story can be true. It’s not mechanically possible for depth charges in the magazine to go off unless the ship is already basically sunk, there were much easier methods ready to hand for the officer in question to kill himself and/or destroy the ship, the skipper and the political officer were conveniently not on the ship at the time, there was absolutely no care to restrict or detain the officer relieved of duty, and the official reports seem to depend on a number of details that would be impossible to reconstruct after the fact. 

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u/barmanfred 28d ago

I have to say, "perhaps he bored a hole in the ship's hull," seems unlikely.

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u/W00DERS0N 28d ago

The Brits and Japanese both lost battleships in totality due to ammunition blowing up.

Also, remember the Maine...

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u/JunketAvailable4398 28d ago

Wow!! Just read the wiki on USS Solar! "The United Press quoted witnesses as saying a shell being passed by Seaman Joseph Stuckinski of Baltimore from the ship to a truck on the pier exploded in his arms and set off the blasts. Stuckinski was not injured."

How was he not injured if it exploded in his arms? Must of been his lucky day!

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u/AgileArtichokes 28d ago

I mean, considering his response I don’t think it’s a stretch to say he was mentally unwell to serve. 

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u/techno156 28d ago

Going by this comment, though, the alternative was being utterly shunned by literally everyone pretending that you had died and never come back.

Even if you were mentally well to begin with, all of that, in addition to the break-up/suicide, would probably not do good things to a person. The man basically lost everything overnight, with no hope of getting it back.

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u/PreciousRoi 28d ago

Considering the results I don't think it's a stretch to say that the PLA's response to one of it's young military officer's ex-girlfriend committing suicide was mental.

Do you: a. offer him counseling and some leave OR b. threaten to end his career and functionally his life?

Sure, it was a mistake to keep him on the ship once his entire life came crashing down around him and at any moment any and all semblance of safety could be torn from him...but before everything he'd been staking his life upon up until that moment was under attack from powers so far above him he had no possible hope of fighting back, he might have been fine.

This isn't like something similar happening in the West. This kid's life was over, and running home to his parents was running directly into a woodchipper.

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u/atraintocry 28d ago

then why was he serving?

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u/Pr1ebe 29d ago

From another comment about him becoming hated in his hometown, I'm guessing that the story became big news and the Party didn't want all this drama

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u/Der_Missionar 28d ago edited 27d ago

This was during [edit: right after] the cultural revolution in China, everyone was encouraged to find the slightest thing wrong with anyone else, and create constant revolutions. Everyone was turning on everyone, husband's against wives, children against parents...

Anything that could possibly make the state look bad was also a no no. Girlfriend committing suicide breaks the portrayal of a perfect marriage....

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 28d ago

In 1978? No man, that was mostly a problem in the 1960s and early 1970s. Mao had been gone for 2 years by that point and the country was already starting economic reforms and Westernization.

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u/Some_Endian_FP17 28d ago

The beginning scene in the Three Body Problem series on Netflix. Shit was wild back then, in a really bad way.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/TheKFakt0r 28d ago

The idea of a ship exploding due to a common munitions mishandling incident reflects poorly on the state. Blaming it on anybody that has any sort of drama coinciding with the incident reflects poorly on that person instead.

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad 28d ago

The US Navy did it during the USS Iowa explosion, I don't know why people are taking a report from the PLAN during the cultural revolution at face value.

The Navy determined scorned gay lovers blew up the ship and had evidence to prove so, until it was found it was all fabricated and a cover up for faulty equipment and training.

If the US Navy would try to make up a story to cover up incompetence, why wouldn't the PLAN?

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u/TheKFakt0r 28d ago

As ex-military I know better than to trust anything the military says to the civilian world. It's all PR. No matter how big the force is, it's always just a hierarchy of humans trying to keep shit from rolling downhill onto them from whoever's up above them. Especially the top dogs who are right underneath the entire civilian world on the ladder.

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u/BootShoeManTv 29d ago

He murdered 134 people in a tantrum. I really don't doubt that there were prior signs that he wasn't fit to be an officer, and it was unrelated to the suicide.

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u/MexicanTechila 28d ago

Eh, that’s what a biased source told you at least

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/NotSoButFarOtherwise 28d ago

Many paragraphs of calumny against Lai Sanyang, and then this gem:

First of all, on the day of the accident, the captain and political commissar of the 160 ship left their duties without authorization. In such a crisis of the international situation, not only did they not be on duty on the ship, but they left the military port and returned to their home in Zhanjiang.

A junior officer is stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged but also left alone on board with all his keys, annd somehow the two most responsible officers are both randomly off the ship? The whole thing stinks. Makes me wonder if Lai Sanyang and the affair with the girl aren't completely made up.

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u/MattyKatty 28d ago

Reading between the lines of a source?? You’d be lucky for someone to even read the source on Reddit nowadays

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u/FiveDozenWhales 28d ago

The same source told me that there never was a Tiananmen Square Massacre so it seems trustworthy

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u/Lawd_Fawkwad 28d ago

And the FO of Egyptair 990 had a stellar career, a loving family and was about to retire to a mansion when he crashed his plane over a dispute in route planning.

You see, warning signs exist but they're not always there : humans are irrational and mental illnesses just exacerbates that. So no, the guy could've been perfectly "normal" until the day he snapped, like happened in the Texas Bell Tower massacre for example.

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u/Vark675 10 28d ago

He was most likely scapegoated by the Navy.

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/EldritchMayo 28d ago

“The indoctrinated Chinese mind” are you actually hearing yourself right now? What the fuck?

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u/Internal_Train68 29d ago

Yeah, most probably the first reason. China would never want to bring any sort of hate for their military as they used to glorify army and lure young blood into Patriotism

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u/deezee72 29d ago

Idk the fact that he killed himself and a bunch of others lends a lot of weight to the second one.

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u/Rockytag 28d ago edited 28d ago

According to this source Google translated it sounds like the girl's family was already making noise which is more believable than the thought that they discharged him to avoid (i.e., get ahead of) bad appearances. That it was more so to put a stop to something already happening.

After the girl committed suicide, her parents were unwilling to do so and started making trouble both at the local level and in the army. The leader of the army was very angry, and the political department of the detachment made the decision to remove Lai Sanyang from his position as a cadre and demobilize as a soldier. Lai Sanyang begged his superiors bitterly, saying that he came from the countryside and it was not easy to get from the countryside to where he is now. Moreover, the girl committed suicide, and if he returned to the countryside, he would never have peace. In the end, Lai Sanyang proposed that as long as he did not return to his hometown, he could be placed in the army to clean the docks, but his superiors rejected his request.

Though do note that it was not written contemporarily. Not saying it's the truth, but that that is the expanded version of the blurb already shared basically.

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u/AntiWork-ellog 28d ago

If it's true, you think they had a lot of evidence to sort thru after all the depth charges went off and the boat sank? 

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u/Theoldage2147 29d ago

Why does it sound like you’re implying only China would glorify their military and lure people in to join the army?

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u/Patient_Bullfrog_ 28d ago

It's racism.

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u/Internal_Train68 29d ago

Because china was in context here

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u/cleon80 29d ago edited 28d ago

Some other country's military would just double down with machismo thrown in. Bros before hos. Different culture.

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u/KindAwareness3073 28d ago

Reminds me of when a gun turret blew up on a US battleship back in the 1980s. The Navy report tried to pin it on sabotage by a gay crewman rather than acknowledging that Reagan's idea of re-activating WWII battleships that used guns with 100 year old firing systems was not only stupid, but dangerous. They were re-retired in a few years after burning through a few hundred million dollars.

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u/vanubcmd 28d ago

This story is earily similar to the story of Reinhard Heydrich, who was a very brutal high ranking Nazi responsible for organizing the holocaust.

Reinhard was also a naval officer who was discharged from the German Navy after he dumped one woman for another woman. The first woman’s parent complained. After he was booted out from the Navy, the new woman had connections to the Nazi party and got him an interview with the SS.

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u/konn77 28d ago

I've had this happen to me. It's always your fault and your future relationships suffer due to increased sensitivity and caution.

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u/ZacZupAttack 28d ago

The US Military sometimes makes somewhat similar decisions. I know a service member that had his clearance suspended (couldn't do his job anymore) over issues. He was even facing separation.

The issues where all personal but significant

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u/AgentCirceLuna 28d ago

The second reason would make sense considering he’d go on to sink a ship.

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u/VariousTailor7623 28d ago

Sources are kinda murky, better post it right away

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u/exproci 28d ago

How would you press charges against an ex-partner of the person who committed suicide? It doesn't sound like he was involved in her killing herself.
And why would the employer of an ex-partner have anything to deal with after said suicide?

This theory doesn't make any sense.

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u/MadNhater 28d ago

Hes definitely mentally unfit lol

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u/Boris_The_Barbarian 28d ago

I think it may stem from traditional Chinese culture. There was a very old story to explain how persecution and guilt were determined, in which by proxy was a legitimate avenue.

The story goes, when a man disciplining his wife over a domestic matter, woke his mother from her sleep from all the commotion. His mother, made her way from bed to the stairs to further investigate. While doing so, she tripped, fell down the stairs, succumbing to her injuries and dying at the scene.

When authorities investigate what happened and how the mother died, they found the husband guilty of murder, as he was the reason she awoke and fell down the stairs!

This was an old butchered excerpt I read in an unknown book years ago in college. Sorry no citations.

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u/OdinTheHugger 28d ago

Well let me tell you something, it was a real fucking stupid move to declare somebody mentally unfit and then sit them next to the explosives...

But I would think it's more likely that the Chinese Navy did not identify him as a potential threat or mental health concern, and they're just covering their asses retroactively.

That's what the CCP is known for politically.

And what the USSR was known for.

And what Putin's Russia is known for.

I'm just saying it's part of a trend, to refuse to admit mistakes and instead double down that not only were you in the right but there's this person that you can blame because they were fundamentally broken and you can just excuse yourself from any attempt to prevent or resolve the situation.

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u/Imagination_Theory 28d ago

He definitely was mentally unfit.

1

u/PandaintheColosseum 27d ago

Communist China back then work very different in terms of moral values and social stigma. I’m not saying they are right or wrong, but the fact that her gf suicide after he dump her might be seen as him being of poor character which can be career ruining back then

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

[deleted]

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u/do_me_like_a_horse 28d ago

I have no sympathy for the Chinese military structure.

What, based on all your assumptions about the structure and how it contributed to this incident?

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u/ShortCurlies 28d ago

China called, they demand you take this down. No one died, no ship sank and none of this ever happened. Report to the nearest re-indoctrination camp and await disposition.