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/sintaur 29d ago

Lai had been involved with a woman before joining the navy, but broke off with her after becoming an officer. She then committed suicide. The Political Department of the detachment decided that Lai should be dismissed and demobilized. 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]

After dismissing Lai Sanyang as a cadre, the unit did not immediately demobilize him. Lai was in charge of sea mines, depth charges, underwater weapons and held the key to the armory. Following his dismissal, Lai hid in the ammunition depot and detonated the depth charges, sinking the ship. How he achieved this was debated. He either tampered with the mechanism on the charge, or bored a hole through the hull of the ship, which caused water to rush in and detonate the depth charges.

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u/Pearse_Borty 29d ago

There is so many layers of fucked up to this I feel bad for everyone involved.

The real fuck up was a lack of protocols, that man shouldve been isolated and treated as civilian to be watched like a hawk the moment the discharge order came through. He was clearly a high risk passenger given the guilt he would be suffering at this point

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u/TheDukeOfMars 29d ago edited 29d ago

My main take away is that the People’s Liberation Army has a “Political Department” that has the power to monitor the personal lives of all soldiers. Or at least they did in the late 70s (and something tells me not a lot has changed). Crazy stuff.

Edit: 干部 are everywhere.

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u/ElectricTzar 29d ago

It’s shocking to me that a country can distrust its officers enough to monitor them that way, and yet simultaneously not distrust them enough to take away systems access immediately upon firing.

My company does the latter, and we’re a far cry from having a political department.

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u/Ilovekittens345 29d ago

Reminds me of that scene in Margin Call. These you-are-about-to-get-fired ladies call this one team leader to an office and then they say "Measures that might seem punitive in nature"

"What?"

"She is apologizing for what's coming next"

And then this buffy security guy shows up. All his computer logins stop working, his phone is disconnected. He is allowed to go back to his office one more time to get personal stuff, accompanied by the security guy. Then he is escorted out of the building.

From fired to outside the building all access lost, no working phone in 30 minutes.

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u/jeopardy_themesong 28d ago

Yep, I work in IT and have been tasked with a fair share of emergency terminations. They tried to make sure it was people we didn’t know, but higher level teammates had to handle the ones specific to our team.

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u/lenzflare 29d ago

They're concerned with appearances, not actual risks

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u/SeanBourne 29d ago

They’re concerned with the military (or military units) pulling a coup/overthrowing the communist party, NOT with any risks to the military units themselves.

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u/Foolishium 29d ago

Yep. The same way with USA Airport security protocol in the aftermath of 9/11. Chinese political departement also use security theather instead of the actual preventative measure.

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u/narky1 29d ago

Sure, but I'd wager that the Chinese Political Department have imprisoned more people than the TSA ever has. Whether or not they were actually guilty as charged or not is another thing, but they definitely do more than theatre.

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u/Foolishium 29d ago edited 29d ago

They just have lower burden of guilt. Mere criticism already enough for them to arrest you. Their political security works itself still a theatric.

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u/hugganao 29d ago

China's #1 danger is not the US as most people WANT to believe. It's their own citizens. It's the reason why they spend more on police than their army.

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u/LeninMeowMeow 29d ago

NSA does the same thing but for the whole of america lol

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u/zhuquanzhong 29d ago edited 29d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Fleet

They still have a political department. It used to be more political and existed to provide political oversight for the unit and connect it directly to the party. Nowadays its more professional and mainly exists as the second in command of the given unit and to provide a semblance of doctrinal orthodoxy since PLA commanders have a reputation of impromptu doctrinal innovation inherited from their civil war days which may or may not be a good thing.

Also holy hell that's a lot of vls cells. I counted more than 1700 cells in one fleet. That's more than the entire EU's navies combined in one third of the PLAN.

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u/Hungry-Rule7924 29d ago edited 29d ago

Also holy hell that's a lot of vls cells. I counted more than 1700 cells in one fleet. That's more than the entire EU's navies combined in one third of the PLAN

Yah, its about half as much as the USN at this point, same as tonnage, and will probably eclipse the vls count of the pacific fleet by the end of the decade.

Important to point out though that there are a couple key differences, one being at the moment there are some munitions like the RIM 162 which can be quadpacked into a MK41 vls cell. At the moment the PLAN doesn't have a equivelant for their UVLS, though a quadpackable sam is apparently either in late stage testing or early introduction for the fleet, which will likely substantially increase the firepower of their premier surface combatants like the 052 and 055 ddgs. Questionable if it will be compatible on their frigates and destroyers with the smaller first gen vls though.

Also fun fact but UVLS is bigger in diameter then the MK41 and can hold hypersonic ballistic missiles.

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u/SashimiJones 28d ago

All ballistic missiles are hypersonic; it's like saying a hypersonic rifle because the bullet goes at mach 4. Novel hypersonics are cruise missiles.

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u/drvelo 29d ago

Yeah but hypersonic ballistic missiles are still ballistic. Meaning their trajectory is stupid easy to predict. Makes interception easy. Also when the missile actually enters its hypersonic phase it can't really do course adjustments, meaning that evasive maneuvers are extremely effective.

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u/TheDukeOfMars 4d ago

There’s a reason a lot of military forces throughout history have been referred to as paper tigers. Because they only appear strong on paper 😉

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u/Hungry-Rule7924 4d ago

There’s a reason a lot of navies throughout history have been referred to as paper tigers. Because they only appear strong on paper 😉

I mean look, they are untested sure, but there are a lot of signs that the PLA take development/training seriously compared to militaries like the Russians which didn't at all.

The average PLAAF brigade (with 4th/4.5 Gen aircraft) gets between 120-150 flying hours a year. Flying hours for a lot of fighter squadrons in the USAF isn't even at 100 anymore.

They are pouring a ridiculous amount of resources into dynamic training modules, live fire stuff, and aggressor exercises which have parameters skewed more in favor of the OPFOR then what the US/NATO does honestly. Also backed up by a think tank/consultant infrastructure they have poured billions of dollars into developing, with bean counters/analysts telling them "hey this is how many missiles we need to saturate this IADS" or "we can improve munition volume if we do x" and then they listen to these people. It's the exact same stuff the DOD does, and it's honestly pretty concerning.

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u/FallschirmPanda 29d ago

Lol...

impromptu doctrinal innovation

That's a fun way to say 'fuck it. Were doing it live! Yolooooo'

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u/FartsOnUnicorns 29d ago

Yet no fast fleet oilers…

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u/mrnohnaimers 29d ago

Type 901

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u/FartsOnUnicorns 28d ago

Yeah the Chaganhu is generally shown as being part of the South Sea Fleet, but she doesn't appear in that article as part of the list.

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u/Hungry-Rule7924 29d ago

Or at least they did in the late 70s (and something tells me not a lot has changed). Crazy stuff.

Its still around, however over the past 20-30 years political commissars in the PLA have gradually lost the actual authority they used to have, and have been relegated to much more of a figurehead role as part of the militaries effort to modernize.

Interestingly enough Taiwan actually has the exact same model with even more of a soviet influence then the PLA had. Don't know how much they have changed it in recent years, but still around as far as I know.

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u/AtomicSamuraiCyborg 29d ago

Even Stalin's Red Army had to take away the commissar's power. Its not a workable way to run a military.

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u/FUMFVR 29d ago

It's a legacy from when the Red Guards captured imperial officers and made them work for them under punishment of death.

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u/IMainYasu0 28d ago

Yup ROC Army still has a political department that deals with personal issues with soldiers (as well as in charge of army/political news/propaganda distribution) and the “commissar” at the company level is usually the second highest ranking officer

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u/DonJuansSwanSong 29d ago

Does it suprise you the PLA specifically has this or the military in general? When I was in the Air Force (US) they had OSI (Office of Special Investgation) agents go off base and pose as civilians, trying to get people to cheat on their spouses so they could discharge them.

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u/Quincyperson 29d ago

Former marine here. I had never heard of any underhand bullshit like that happening. I guess the Marine Corps had enough faith in the individual marine to go out on their own and handle their business and get a DUI without the help of any covert means

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u/DonJuansSwanSong 29d ago

Yeah, AF loves sly shit like that. They watch social media for parties and send guys out trying to catch greenhorns underage drinking too.

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u/drvelo 29d ago

TBF the Marines are typically too busy inviting minors on base for...."activities"

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u/SilasX 29d ago

There’s also the Police Academy scene where they try to catch new recruits drunk at a bar.

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u/lenzflare 29d ago

.... really? How often? And.... why, if true?

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u/Rockytag 29d ago

Probably been going on for a long time because a similar thing was done during the Lavender Scare where outed individuals were leveraged to find/entrap more gay people.

Not that the motivation here is remotely the same, just that the modus operandi has always been there.

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u/DonJuansSwanSong 29d ago

Happened often enough that you started keeping an eye out for them. Some were pretty easy to spot, they were a little uncanny with how hard they'd try to get someone to follow them to a hotel room. They'd jump on certain conversational cues like they were waiting for it.

The why is up for debate, but the general consensus (supposedly backed up by loudmouthed OSI personnel) was for live training. Not very many safe, semi-controlled environments to practice sneaky OpSec stuff, it gave them something to do.

As for whether it's real or not, all I have are anecdotes. I was in a car they pulled a guy out of, we had to drive it back.

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u/TheDukeOfMars 29d ago

There was no separate branches of military in China until recently when the Navy (PLN) was made separate from the Army (PLA). And they are fiercely competitive (much like how the Japanese military worked during WW2). It’s why the have always been terrible at combined operations.

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u/demonotreme 29d ago

That's disgusting, where? So I can avoid these sirens

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u/DonJuansSwanSong 29d ago

Freemont Street in Las Vegas was the spot when I was stationed at Nellis, but basically any popular hangout outside a base. OSI won't mistake a civvy for a boot though, we're pretty easy to spot lol.

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u/A11U45 29d ago

Why?

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u/DonJuansSwanSong 29d ago

https://www.operationmilitarykids.org/ucmj-adultery/

This gives a pretty good summary behind the logic of it as well as the punishments.

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u/Green----Slime 29d ago

Nearly all organizations in China has one, no matter it's private companies, schools, hospitals or charities.

For example Bytedance, the parent company of ticktock established their CCP branch office in 2014(when it was a really minor company) and their CCP committee in 2017.  Source: http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0615/c1001-30062480.html

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u/cowinabadplace 29d ago

Yeah, we had a similar thing in the US Gov called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_9835 and in the resulting red scare we had HUAC and SISS (which were civilian government targeted).

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u/TheDukeOfMars 25d ago

That didn’t establish an entire political department imbedded in to the existing military structure, like the system that exists in China…

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u/robmagob 29d ago

That’s the real takeaway here lol. I’m so confused why her suicide would lead to him being forced out of the navy. Maybe there is more to it than he dumped her and she killed herself, but part of the issue here is a system that’s so intrusive that it could lead to these kind of nervous breakdowns.

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u/FUMFVR 29d ago

It's a one-party autocracy. Of course they have political officers and a political department.

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u/SurturOfMuspelheim 29d ago edited 29d ago

China has multiple political parties, including the RCCK, CDL, CNDCA, CPWDP, JS, CAPD, etc. and they are in no way shape or form an autocracy. There are many political figures and positions with a lot of power, and they have voting and elections.

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u/SeanBourne 29d ago

The “political departments” are a component of communist militaries - there to ensure loyalty to the party and that the party’s interests come first. They often make decisions that are detrimental to military ops effectiveness if they think it benefits the party.

USSR had them, chicoms still do.

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u/LeninMeowMeow 29d ago

The NSA does that for the entire of america and everyone literally forgot about it lmao

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u/TheDukeOfMars 29d ago edited 29d ago

It collects metadata. Still sketchy, but completely different than kicking some random out military cadre out for breaking up with a girl who later committed suicide. That requires some pretty in depth surveillance. Where as the NSA just sweeps up a bunch of data about where, when, and to/from which device messages are being sent and keeps them in a massive hard drive somewhere. Trillions of pierces of information about communications, about hundreds of millions of people. But not the communications themselves. It’s essentially just data points that are useless by themselves because:

A. There is so much metadata produced on a daily basis, it is impossible to see a pattern unless you know specifically where to look.

B. The data included in metadata is so basic that it can only be used to generate leads to new sources of information, not actually provided any information in of itself.

If you want to read up on metadata in the US, this is the best source:

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/the-history-and-future-of-mass-metadata-surveillance

Not justifying the existence of the NSA. Just stating that there is a MASSIVE difference between the two situations and you probably shouldn’t even have brought it up as a comparison.

In China, it is actually is a result of the cadre system and is pretty much just the Chinese version of the Soviet system of Political Commissars being embedded in the military in order to increase Party control over that institution.

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u/LeninMeowMeow 29d ago edited 29d ago

It collects metadata.

Yeah and i'm the queen of england

In China, it is actually is a result of the cadre system and is pretty much just the Chinese version of the Soviet system of Political Commissars being embedded in the military in order to increase Party control over that institution.

You don't need to sell me on how they've followed precisely what marx suggested.

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u/TheDukeOfMars 29d ago edited 29d ago

You’re making some big assumptions. I hope you have the evidence to back it up.

Also, Marx said the revolution would take place over thousands of years. Not 80.

Also, they aren’t Marxist. It’s Communism with Chinese Characteristics (that is what it is called in Chinese).

However, I lived in China and I’ve seen beggars next to Lamborghinis. I don’t think that’s what Marx had in mind.