When eight-year-old Tang Lei watched PLA soldiers rushed over the ridges to rescue his family in despair during the 2008 Wenchuan quake, he swore in his heart: “When I grow up, I want to wear this uniform too.”
Right: Tang Lei, a young soldier who once lay trapped under rubble.
Then: An eight-year-old survivor dreaming of that uniform.
Forged in Fire
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Right: Tang Lei, a young soldier who once lay trapped under rubble.
Then: An eight-year-old survivor dreaming of that uniform.
Life at the academy tested him. From the Gobi’s grit to mountain drills, Tang Lei pushed through live-action exercises until he earned his wings as a paratrooper. “I fought through it because I’d seen real courage when the PLA saved us,” he says matter-of-factly.
Homefront: Villagers glued to TVs as their hero marches by.
In 2019, Tang Lei filled out his College Entrance Exam choices. Only military academies—no backups. Told to apply locally “just in case,” he insisted still, “If I don’t get in, I’ll retake the year.” And he did become his Qiang village’s first military cadet.
A Soldier’s Application
Hearing about the September 3 V-Day parade, he wrote a heartfelt plea: as a quake-zone kid, he and his hometown owed the troops. Could he march as a paratrooper, representing his fellow villagers? The sincerity won him selection and sent him sprinting to Beijing for grueling training.
Under Beijing’s scorching sun, he drilled posture and goose-step until his uniform cycled from sodden to dry, and back again. When his father called, worried, Tang Lei laughed it off: “As long as I don’t die, I can keep going.” These words sounded casual, yet they reflected his deepest conviction.
Life at the academy tested him. From the Gobi’s grit to mountain drills, Tang Lei pushed through live-action exercises until he earned his wings as a paratrooper. “I fought through it because I’d seen real courage when the PLA saved us,” he says matter-of-factly.
A Village’s Pride
On parade day, villagers in Beichuan sat glued to their TVs. Spotting Tang Lei in the airborne assault formation, they cheered so hard their eyes couldn’t stay open. For his parents, it was pride; for the town, hope; for Tang Lei, the answer to a childhood promise: “I want to give my best to my country, my motherland.”
Homefront: Villagers glued to TVs as their hero marches by.
Tang Lei’s journey reflects a generation raised by disaster yet driven by gratitude. Protected once, he now chooses to protect others. His transformation is the best embodiment of the term “mission.”
Tang Lei is one among many quake-rescued children who vowed to serve—some in medicine, some in education, and others, like him, in uniform. Seventeen years on, those seeds of hope have sprouted, proving disasters can’t break a nation but make it stronger.
Mao Paishou
** The blog article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not represent the position of our company. **
The New Year barely begins, and Washington drops a flashbang on global diplomacy. A sitting president is forcibly detained and taken out of his own country — a move that blows past diplomatic convention and rams straight into international law’s red lines. On Taiwan, the chatter instantly turns into self-projection, as some people try to shoehorn a faraway conflict into the island’s own storyline. Anxiety spreads fast.
Maduro in cuffs, in a US federal courtroom — the raid’s image problem. (AP)
The South China Morning Post says the US action against Venezuela ignites a fierce debate on the island. Some commentary links the raid to the PLA’s recent encirclement drills around Taiwan, arguing parts of those exercises look, at least in form, like the US’s so-called “decapitation operations”: essentially a leadership-targeting operation. Some American scholars also warn this kind of play could set a dangerous precedent and invite copycats.
“Justice Mission-2025” rolls on as the Eastern Theater Command drills.
That debate doesn’t stay academic for long. It pumps up the island’s unease, with some people asking whether the same kind of military method could one day be copied and pasted into the Taiwan Strait. Even if it mostly lives in public talk, a high-tension political environment turns speculation into something that feels like risk.
People on the island don’t read the US move the same way. A small minority treats it as a US power flex, packed with intel integration, precision strike, and long-range reach. But the more clear-eyed view is harsher: such action chips away at the basic consensus of international order — because if major powers can raid at will and topple other countries’ leaders for their own aims, “rules” stop acting like rules.
Anxiety turns into politics
That worry quickly lands in Taiwan’s political arena. On Jan 5, multiple Taiwan legislators pressed Deputy Defense Minister Hsu Szu-chien at the legislature, asking how he views the US action against Venezuela and whether the PLA might replicate a similar model in the Taiwan Strait. Hsu doesn’t answer head-on. Rather, he merely mentioned preparing and drilling for all kinds of sudden contingencies.
Then he pivots to money. He urges the legislature to pass military budget appropriations quickly and plays up the urgency of delays eating into “preparation time.”
That kind of sidestep, unsurprisingly, only deepened public unease.
SCMP, citing multiple security experts, says the DPP authorities try to play down the association — but outsiders don’t fully rule it out. The reason, those experts argue, is the PLA’s continuing push to improve its ability to shift from exercises to real combat. On the island, that alone works like an anxiety amplifier.
Back in the real world, the PLA Eastern Theater Command has been running “Justice Mission-2025” exercises since Dec 29 last year. Official statements spell out the purpose: a stern warning to “Taiwan independence” separatist forces and external interference, and a move aimed at safeguarding national sovereignty and unification. The message is public and clear, there’s no gray area.
Some US think-tank voices pull a more confrontational takeaway from the US action. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Hal Brands warns the US raid on Venezuela could create a “demonstration effect,” and he speculates China would watch those tactics closely. Some military commentators on the island seized the moment to hype fears, claiming the mainland might act during a “window” when US power is stretched thin.
That line of talk sounds like analysis, but it functions like a panic pump. US scholar Lev Nachman even says bluntly on social media that if a sudden military action hits the Taiwan Strait, the island could suffer “instant collapse” — not just militarily, but as a psychological shock to society.
KMT Chairperson Cheng Li-wun, in an interview, points to Donald Trump repeatedly stressing a shift of strategic focus toward affairs in the Americas. She says the Venezuela incident should be examined through the framework of international law, and she calls for disputes in any region to be resolved by peaceful means rather than force.
Cheng also reiterates the KMT position: uphold the “1992 Consensus,” oppose “Taiwan independence,” and urge Lai Ching-te to clearly oppose “Taiwan independence,” not touch legal red lines, and avoid continuously raising cross-strait conflict risks.
Rules talk meets reality
International reaction also turns critical of Washington’s approach. Multiple governments and regional organizations speak up quickly, condemning the action as a violation of the UN Charter, which explicitly prohibits using force to threaten or violate another nation’s territorial integrity and political independence. The telling part is the silence: the Western countries that often talk about “international rules” either zipped their mouths, or danced around the question this time.
Reuters says that even though China, Russia, and others clearly condemn the US behavior, the Trump administration is unlikely to face strong pressure from allies as a result. That selective muteness, by itself, drains the credibility of the international order.
On Jan. 5, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian commented again, saying the US actions clearly violate international law and the basic norms of international relations, and violate the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. China calls on the US to ensure the personal safety of President Maduro and his wife, immediately release them, stop subverting the Venezuelan government, and resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.
