Rise of the Reds Update: Whistleblower news

Michael Deng (name changed)
Ex PRC Ministry of State Security

"When I majored in computer science at the university of Shanghai in 2044, I was approached by a recruitment officer. My very own professor had recommended me and a number of other top graduates to the Ministry of State Security. It seemed like a lucrative and honourable job to me at the time - young, naive and foolish as I was. After a slew of agency bureaucracy, we had to attend several classes on the subjects of law, self-defence, intelligence and counter-intelligence however the most extensive lessons were ideological in nature; endless lectures about the righteousness of the Party and the supremacy of our Middle Kingdom. The Ministry ran a full background check on ourselves, our parents, grandparents, siblings and other close relatives. We were all in our early to mid 20s; awkward student boys who'd been wipped through school and university, who spent their days looking at lines of code while others went out socialising, but if anyone of us would have had a wife or children, they would have screened them too. The political officers jokingly refered to this invasive practice as the 'nine familial examinations'. The moment you enter a career in the administration, the Party, the Army or any other state organisation, your privacy ends. You become a little cog in the machine that is expected to function and your reward after a lifetime of service is that you get to be an individual once again."

"After our introduction, I was assigned to the MSS' signal intelligence branch and ordered to Vietnam, where I worked in the the city of Hanoi which had once again become the country's capital at Beijing's command. The Party wanted to keep its Vietnamese puppet government close to our own border and did not like the symbolism of Ho Chi Minh City, which was named after the man who - in his own words - would have prefered to sniff the faeces of the French for five years rather than eat ours for the rest of his life. He must be spinning in his grave since the day the GAPA agreement was signed back in '31. The People's Republic has changed a lot in the last decades. I owe my very existence to the Modern Way programme: After the coup of 2018, our new Chairman Zhao Wei enacted a number of quick reforms. He expanded the social security and healthcare system, introduced basic elements of local democracy and free speech and did away with the One Child policy to tackle the demographic challenges that our country was facing. I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if it hadn't been for him. But then, tragedy struck and he was among the thousands who died in the GLA terror attack against our capital. His successors turned him into a martyr and skewed his ideals to justify their own imperialistic plans."

"He would be ashamed of what our country has become since then: The press is nominally free, but the critical journalists get little exposure because the state media still hold an enforced monopoly and the liberalisations did not grow beyond the communal and provincial level, at which we are at least able to elect which Party representative we want. And ever since Cheung Liu has taken over, our new demographic growth is being abused to slowly erode the populations of our neighbours in preparation of their eventual annexation in a century or so. For all the precious reforms and advancements back home, our current leadership is treating the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the other GAPA countries as second-rate citizens...serfs, rather. Back in Hanoi, it was my job to assist them at that. My task was to infiltrate the computers of individuals that were suspected to be dissidents, alleged terrorists or even just ordinary people who somehow got caught in the gears of bureaucracy. I gathered information to build a case against them until someone higher up clicked his fingers and told the Secret Police to pay them a visit. Some of them got harrassed into submission, others got detained...and more than a few of them were whisked away and disappeared entirely. In these cases, it was also my job to 'clean' them, as we called it; purge all official records and erase their digital life...We wiped them out, made it look like they'd never even existed. Other colleagues of mine worked as political sock puppets on the internet or flat-out censored it while SinoNews did its own part by discrediting the opposition, spinning the stories and fooling the rest of the world with a facade of lies."

"The whole system worked disturbingly well but soon, I could no longer look at myself in the mirror or salute our flag. I felt ashamed. The GAPA was founded through deception and intimidation alone and now we are bleeding our so-called 'allies' dry. We erode their cultures, take their resources, steal their lands to extend our influence at sea and deny them the fundamental rights that Chairman Zhao had given our people. I could no longer bear this hypocrisy and I did not want to return home, for I knew that our future was going to be built on their bones. I had enough. I used my clearance and skills to manipulate the Ministry's database and handed out exit permits to many locals so they could flee the GAPA and make it to the Philippines, India or Australia before I arranged my own defection. Now I live in a foreign country as a traitor under a fake name. Every day, I must be on my guard, for the Ministry does not take kindly to whistleblowers. But I hope that this tyranny will come to an end; that the Party will return to the path of decency and honour the true vision of Chairman Zhao, who famously said that the transition to a real democracy would be China's final revolution. It might not appear that way on the surface, but behind the facade of extreme nationalism, unquestioning loyalty and state worship, our country has changed over the last two decades, and more so than Cheung Liu and his technocrats would like to admit: The modernisations have given birth to a new, politically sensitive generation that is no longer interested in military glory and territorial conquests. These people want to make a difference back home. They want a nation of liberty and justice that does not impose its will upon others through brutality and deception. And one day, they -will- speak up!"

Presented at the Beijing Anti-Terrorist Trade Show in 2009, the Hua Qing minigun was designed as a six-barrelled 7.62mm Gatling-type machine gun for Chinese infantry forces. Ever since then, the PLA had taken a great interest in rotary cannons and developed many indigenous designs that were often 'inspired' by American models and internationally marketed as the 'Gattling' series. Many US weapon manufacturers have filed lawsuits against what they perceived as a blatant intellectual property violation while the Chinese designers churned out model after model. During the Global War On Terror, this obsession with rotary cannons escalated to the point where the entire PLA Marine Corps was equipped with handheld 5.8mm Gattling rifles. Despite producing an undeniably impressive volume of fire, the weapons quickly earned the ire of the soldiers who often had their shoulders dislocated by the immense recoil. After the war - and the death of the erratic PLAMC General Shin Fai amidst the nuclear destruction of Hamburg - the weapons were phased out. However, the People's Army still maintained that a heavy-duty rotary cannon would be an excellent fire support asset for infantry forces and issued the latest three-barrel model of the Hua Qing to squads of dedicated weapon specialists, most prominently those of General Mau.

First shown to the PLA Macau garrison in 1999, the PF-98 is a 120mm rocket launcher which was designed to replace the Type 78 and Type 65 recoilless rifles. Thanks to the use of fibreglass materials, the launcher clocks in at only 10 kilograms, making it an ideal anti-tank weapon for the specialists of General Mau. Once deployed, it can be loaded with two types of rockets: One with an armour-piercing flak warhead and the recently developed 'Disruptor' warhead, the most compact EMP weapon in the Chinese arsenal, which can instantly disable even the heaviest vehicles.

Personally designed by the aspiring General Mau, the ZTZ202 Shenlong (which literally translates to 'Spirit Dragon') is a heavily modified version of China's iconic ZTZ200 Overlord Tank whose entire turret has been replaced with two heavily armoured, high-pressure flamethrowers. In addition, the tank has been equipped with an auxiliary engine unit which provides its turret swivel with extra power to perform a fast, finely aimed sweeping motion with the flamethrowers which can be set to a narrow, medium and wide angle in order to cover a smaller or larger area in a literal sea of hellfire. Beyond that, it is rumoured that General Mau is currently working on a further modified version of the tank which can be equipped with modular weapon systems.

We have also decided to update the models of China's Propaganda Towers.

With Jammer Towers upgrade

Finally, here's some new ROTR-themed wallpapers, including one with the new Shenlong heavy tank.