Battalion chief pledges security of Hong Kong

"Please rest assured about the security of Hong Kong, since I am always ready to safeguard the city."

That could be the loudest thing that Wang Haixu — a battalion commander of the People's Liberation Army's Hong Kong Garrison, and also a delegate to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China — wants to say to the Party as it witnesses its national congress.

Before being assigned to work in the Hong Kong Garrison, Wang spent most of his time in northern China. Growing up in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, he enrolled in a university in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region in 2004, making his parents very proud.

However, one year later, beyond his parents' expectation, the then 20-year-old applied to join the army for two years of service, during which Wang was transferred to a military university in southern China, after a tough selection process, to study air defense. Those changes were all motivated by his childhood memory of the military.

"I was very interested in the military from a young age and wanted to become a soldier due to the job's outstanding image in my heart," said Wang. "As I watched the TV news reports, no matter if it was a time of war or peace, the soldiers would always serve on the front line fighting against enemies or providing disaster relief and rescue."

Due to his distinctive performance, Wang was offered an opportunity to serve in a developed city or area near his home when graduating in 2010, but instead Wang chose to serve in Anshan city in Northeast China's Liaoning province until 2019.

In the city, located near China's border with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he met and married his wife in 2018. But soon they had to face the challenges of a long-distance marriage because a year later Wang applied to work in the PLA's Hong Kong Garrison.

"My military career was limited and thus I thought I should seize the precious opportunity to work in the Hong Kong Garrison, which was the first chance of its kind since 2010," he said, adding that he wanted to explore how big a contribution he could make in such an army of heroes.

Soon, he became a battalion commander leading nearly 200 soldiers in the garrison, which was an obvious challenge for him. His secret to enhancing the combat ability of his team was by taking part in many major combat drills and leading the battalion to dig into combat tactics, which also strengthened his leadership skills.

When deciding which kind of radar vehicles should lead the troops in echelon formation, search radar or target radar, in order to save time when occupying the battlefield, Wang organized nearly 10 rounds of exercises for the battalion. Through repeated comparison, the leader and his team found the best arrangement, saving eight minutes in total.

Some soldiers questioned his actions, but he stuck to the perspective of actual combat — "the more time we save on the battlefield, the more possibility we will win the fight".

In 2020, Wang led the team to conduct target exercises in northern China's Bohai Sea. However, they encountered a major obstacle since the radar screen was blurred due to the interference from strong wind and waves.

"To win the exercises, we had to be able to read the radar screen no matter how hard it was," Wang said. After constant analyses of more than a thousand groups of data, they finally succeeded in suppressing the interference of sea clutter and figuring out the radar noise maps, which helped them target more than 10 aerial targets successfully in their identification area.

Having defended the international hub of Hong Kong for three years, Wang is now continuing his work as a front-line soldier.

"The duty of us soldiers is to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said. "I find my work more meaningful here in such an important city and will continue to make my contribution."

jiangchenglong@chinadaily.com.cn