Former Chinese People’s Liberation Army lieutenant Gao Feng, who is now in exile overseas, had worked at a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) nuclear test base for 10 years and witnessed the brutal toll that CCP soldiers paid for the CCP’s nuclear tests. In a recent interview with Voice of America, Gao Feng shared some of the insider information he knew.
In 1979, at the age of 18, Gao Feng enlisted in the army and was stationed at a place that was considered very mysterious at that time, called Malan. Its full name is the “People’s Liberation Army’s 21st Testing and Training Base,” abbreviated as “Base 21.”
Malan is located south of the Tianshan Mountains in Xinjiang, in the heart of the Taklamakan Desert, adjacent to the known as the “Sea of Death”, Lop Nur.
In the late 1950s, Chinese soldiers built China’s earliest and only nuclear test base on this climatically harsh and desolate Gobi desert. On October 16, 1964, the first atomic bomb of the CCP exploded here.
Gao Feng’s parents migrated to Xinjiang from the mainland in the 1950s. Gao Feng mentioned that his parents had to obey allocations as “your rice bowl is controlled by others.”
Gao Feng was born in Urumqi in 1961. After failing the college entrance exam twice in 1979, he enlisted in the army.
He was blindly assigned to a unit conducting nuclear weapons tests.
According to Gao Feng, Malan in Xinjiang is a very large area, spanning hundreds of square kilometers with many scattered troops. It had around six to seven thousand personnel. The headquarters, political department, and the 21st Nuclear Research Institute were located inside the Red Mountain. Three guard posts were set up, each checking passes at different points.
He mentioned that the nuclear test site was divided into air and ground explosion areas. The living quarters of Malan were about 150 kilometers away from the ground explosion site. Lop Nur served as an air explosion site, known internally as “720,” while the ground explosion site was usually referred to as “820.”
During his ten years of service, Gao Feng entered the nuclear test area five times to provide logistic support. He reminisced that his best years, from 18 to 28, were spent on that Gobi Desert.
On October 16, 1980, Gao Feng noted in his diary the first time he witnessed a nuclear bomb exploding: “After a night of difficult driving, we finally arrived at the destination. At 12:30 noon, another nuclear bomb of the CCP exploded in the air. We watched the explosion’s flash and fireball with ten thousand times the protective glasses. After 44 seconds, we took off the glasses and observed the rising mushroom cloud.”
More than forty years later, Gao Feng still vividly remembers that scene.
He described how it started with a black color, turned into a red fireball, proceeded to roll and grow larger, and eventually transformed into a white mushroom cloud, which floated slowly minutes later.
He emphasized that when entering the work area, there were no protective measures in place, and no one informed them of the hazards of nuclear radiation.
According to Gao Feng, at that time, due to ignorance, most soldiers were unaware of the effects of nuclear radiation on the body. They were fearless because the concept was foreign to them. Orders were given, and they followed without knowing the risks involved.
However, these young soldiers were aware that the senior military leaders would not personally come to the nuclear test site.
Gao Feng revealed that only deputy positions were sent into the site by units, such as staff officers sent by the command headquarters and assistant directors sent by the political department. The main leaders such as regiment commanders and political commissars stayed at the Malan main camp and sent deputy regiment commanders, deputy battalion commanders, or deputy political commissars in, as the area had high contamination and radiation.
After serving for a long time, Gao Feng gradually became reluctant to work in the nuclear test area due to the risks involved. However, as a soldier, he had no choice but to follow orders, even if it meant going against his will.
He mentioned that each time they completed missions in the area, their bodies were tested for radiation exposure, and the data was kept secret, with base personnel unaware. The data was taken by officials from the General Staff or research institutes, and they were kept in the dark about the extent of harm inflicted on their bodies, including the amount of nuclear exposure they received.
In the early 1980s, the first group of veterans who participated in the nuclear tests visited the Malan base. Their impoverished and sickly appearance shocked Gao Feng, and he was equally astonished by the indifference shown by the higher-ups towards these veterans.
Gao Feng recalled how numerous veterans would visit the base, sometimes in groups of hundreds. At that time, the troops allowed them to be received and accommodated in the camp, sharing meals with the soldiers. However, the unit started to disintegrate.
Each officer had to be responsible for a few individuals, thus, they were required to mobilize them to return home. Some were appeased or even given small benefits, like having officers and soldiers donate a bit of money to convince them to leave, especially those who were in dire poverty.
Gao Feng noted, “In the early 1990s, around 1991 or 1992, I had already left the military. I heard that those who came to visit faced a bitter time when they visited Malan. They were not allowed into the camp area nor were they received. Instead, the local public security bureau was informed not to allow hotels to accommodate them.”
Among these veterans were those who were seriously ill or completely broke, thinking that by visiting their old unit, they could secure a meal. However, contrary to their expectations, they were denied entry and lodging locally, in a very pitiful situation.
Years later, the detrimental effects of nuclear radiation began to manifest among Gao Feng and his fellow veterans who participated in the nuclear tests. He suffered from chronic insomnia and had a lower white blood cell count than normal.
With a white blood cell count of 2.5 to 3, Gao Feng shared his current health condition where he easily catches a cold when exposed to a slight breeze, often relying on medication and facing sleep issues since 1985. He has not had a good night’s sleep in several decades, showcasing the long-term impacts of his involvement in the nuclear tests.
Many of Gao Feng’s comrades passed away prematurely.
Describing his anguish, Gao Feng said, “Many of my comrades died of various cancers, such as liver cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, leukemia, when they were in their thirties and forties. Many people died around the age of 40.”
During his ten years at the Malan base, Gao Feng witnessed and heard of numerous accidents and abnormal deaths.
He disclosed witnessing one soldier who died due to a post-appendectomy severe abdominal infection. During the soldier’s final moments, a nurse handed him a book to leave any last words or messages. Gao Feng narrated how tearfully the soldier, barely able to open his eyes, managed to write a few words before his heartbreaking demise, expressing his desire to return home. Such incidents left a deep emotional impact on Gao Feng, as he witnessed young soldiers pass away tragically due to seemingly routine surgeries.
He remembered the reports stating that a total of four soldiers died due to minor surgeries like this one.
The victims of CCP’s nuclear tests were not only Han Chinese but also included a large number of Uighur people residing in the area. In 2008, Japanese professor Jun Takada, from Sapporo Medical University, published “Chinese Nuclear Tests: Disasters Triggered by Nuclear Explosions on the Silk Road,” exposing that from 1964 to 1996, China conducted a total of 46 secret nuclear tests in the Lop Nur test site, with a total yield reaching twenty million tons.
Based on the population density of the area, around 190,000 people may have died due to exposure to radioactive fallout (the large amount of dust formed by nuclear fission products and surface materials). Moreover, approximately 1.29 million individuals may have a significantly increased risk of leukemia, cancer, and embryonic damage.
In 2010, Gao Feng left China and sought refuge with relatives overseas. He then established and joined over a hundred current affairs WeChat groups, using aliases to share a significant amount of information considered sensitive by the Chinese authorities.
However, the repressive arm of the Chinese national security department reached out to him.
Gao Feng recounted, “In 2017, they contacted me, asking me to return to the country, but I refused. After my refusal, they deducted my retirement benefits.”