SWL
Shortwave ListeningHistory: Rediscovering Peking International Transmitting Station
According to sources like Shanghai’s "The Paper" and the China Telecom Museum, Peking International Transmitting Station, known in Chinese as 北京国际电台中央发信台 or under its operational "3rd Transmitting Station" or Station Number 3 (第三电台), went into operation in 1951, apparently on June 9th of that year. It is reportedly located in Chaoyang District, but I haven’t found its actual address. The old facility may serve as an inspirational site for "red tourism" –, or more particularly as "a vivid teaching material for strengthening patriotic education and inheriting and carrying forward the spirit of red communications".
EEWorld provides some background in English on what "red communications" is.
It seems that the Peking station’s shortwave transmitters were used both for telecommunications and broadcasting:
After 1952, Radio Station No. 3 served as the broadcaster for Xinhua News Agency’s domestic shortwave news broadcasts and the first program of the Central People’s Broadcasting Station. Its signal covered all provinces and municipalities in China, including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, playing an irreplaceable role in providing wireless broadcasting services to the entire nation, the Party, government, military, and overseas Chinese communities.
But regular and extraordinary telecommunications tasks, like international conferences, visits by then Chief State Councillor (or Premier) Zhou Enlai to foreign countries, China’s first nuclear test, and Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States are also ascribed to the station.
"Red communications" history manifests itself in a number of places, as shown on the China Telecom Museum’s website: in Hankou, with beginnings in 1884, i. e. from imperial China through the years of the Republic of China; in Nanking, starting in 1918; and in Sichuan Province’s Meishan City, beginning in 1965, as a bunkered facility.
Shortwave is considered a strategic resource in China, much more so than in Western countries. The way China’s shortwave radio services (China Radio International etc.) pick up frequencies abandoned by other countries and lay waste to frequencies they don’t actually need, as well as a generally secretive approach to shortwave operation facilities, are palpable examples.
That said, both red tourism and the size of the facilities (often several hectares) should provide a path into places like Peking International Transmitting Station. Whenever there’s nothing else to report, journos seem to dive into these historical (and patriotic) narratives. In Germany, you have to talk about "number stations" to raise some interest (if lucky). In China, just mention "shortwave".
#China #propaganda #shortwave
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