An unexpected ditch digging incident in Hunan Province, China, caused a 143-minute disruption in national defense communication, exposing vulnerabilities in grassroots governance and military communication protection. The incident, which occurred in Xinxian County, Hunan Province, has quickly caught the attention of the public.
According to a report from the Supreme Court’s WeChat public account on December 9, 2025, on February 11, 2025, a villager named He and his team were clearing a field irrigation channel in Tangli Village, Yantang Town, Xinxian County, Hunan Province using an excavator when they accidentally cut through two defense optic cables and one telecommunication optic cable. This sudden turn of events led to a communication outage that paralyzed the national defense communication lines for 143 minutes.
The villagers involved in the case stated, “We are villagers from this village, we don’t have any professional knowledge, we just wanted to do more work and earn more money.”
The report mentioned that the project in question was part of the local government’s work-for-relief program. Following the incident, He and his team cooperated in repairing the damage, turned themselves in, and cooperated with the investigation. They jointly compensated the economic losses of the China Telecom Shaoyang Long-distance Telecommunication Line Bureau and reached an understanding with this line bureau and a certain unit of the Chinese Communist Party.
In the end, He and his team were found guilty of negligently damaging military communication equipment but were not subjected to criminal punishment.
Some netizens who have been following the case expressed that this incident is not simply a case of “grassroots negligence,” but a typical example under the Chinese Communist Party regime where national security management formalism, paralysis in grassroots project supervision, and the shifting of responsibilities onto the most vulnerable groups are prevalent. It also reveals that the so-called “unshakable” “national security red line” is vulnerable in practical operation.
Some netizens pointed out that while the two villagers were found guilty of “negligently damaging military communication equipment” but ultimately were “not subjected to criminal punishment,” this leniency comes at the cost of sacrificing individual rights and serves as a way to find inexpensive “scapegoats” for systemic lapses. Moreover, the two farmers have already “jointly compensated” for all economic losses, which undoubtedly shifts the enormous losses caused by the dereliction of duty and inadequate supervision of public officials within the system onto the poorest and most innocent members of society.
Others expressed that this incident also exposes the deep-seated problems in the execution of the Chinese Communist Party’s “work-for-relief” policy – local governments, in pursuit of rapid performance indicators, simplify and entrust dredging operations that originally required highly professional exploration and construction management to inadequately trained impoverished populations. This practice sacrifices the safety and professionalism of the projects.