On the eve of the U.S.-British military strike against Iraq in 2003, the Chinese Embassy in Iraq was ordered to withdraw, and the embassy was in a state of temporary closure. After more than 40 days of war, on May 1, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the end of major military operations in Iraq. Subsequently, the post-war reconstruction of Iraq began when the military operations were far from over, and at the beginning of June, with the approval of the Central Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to send a resumption team to Iraq to resume the work of the Embassy. At that time, the embassy premises had been completely destroyed and looted before and after the war. China and Iraq had always maintained relatively good relations, relations that were beneficial to both sides. The central government hopes for a smooth transition from this relationship to that with the new Iraqi government. Secondly, China still has some rights and interests in Iraq, such as trade and debts. In short, for the long-term development of relations between the two countries, someone needs to go to Iraq to carry out diplomatic work.
Originally, Sun Bigan retired after his term as ambassador to Iran ended in 2002. Speaking of his appointment as head of the reopening team, Ambassador Sun was not surprised. Because he served as China's ambassador to Iraq from 1994 to 1998, he has a better understanding of the situation in Iraq and the Middle East and is a recognized expert on Middle East issues.
Ambassador Sun said that almost at the same time when the decision was made to send the resumption team, the foreign ministry was considering sending armed guards for the resumption team for security reasons. "When the re-establishment team was established in June last year, some leading comrades in the ministry raised the issue. But it couldn't be realized that quickly, after all, and time was short, so we didn't bring guards with us when we first entered Iraq."
After a short period of preparation, Sun Bi Gan and his party flew to Jordan in late June last year. July 16, Sun Bi Gan, Jiang Xu, Yu Hailin and driver Quan Xigang and his party of four entered post-war Iraq for the first time through what is known as the "road of death," the Yoyi Highway, and the main task of the trip was to investigate the situation of post-war Iraq, to prepare for the resumption of the work of the museum. On August 12, the team left Iraq and returned to Jordan, where they submitted a report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the situation in Iraq and the premises of the Chinese Embassy, and prepared to return to Baghdad in September. Just as they were preparing to re-enter Iraq, the situation deteriorated with the August 19th bombing, which killed United Nations Special Envoy De Mello, and the subsequent killing of Hazim, the Chairman of the Interim Supreme Administrative Council of Iraq. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefore asked the re-entry team to stand by in Jordan and observe the situation in close proximity. As a result, they waited for six months. Diplomats take armed police with them
It was during this time that the foreign ministry made a formal decision to send armed police to accompany diplomats into Iraq. The situation in post-war Iraq is a mess. So sending armed police to defend the diplomats became a necessary measure. This was unprecedented in the diplomatic history of New China. After strict selection, training and preparation, on February 9, 2004, six members of the guard team from the Beijing General Brigade of the Armed Police arrived in Jordan via Moscow to meet Sun Bigan and others. Due to their special status as soldiers and the weapons they were carrying, they went through complicated procedures during their transit through Moscow. Jordan, on the other hand, facilitated the arrival of the Chinese armed police, but made two requirements: first, weapons and personnel were to be kept separate, and the Chinese armed police could not carry with them the weapons they had brought with them from their home countries, which were to be transported by the Jordanian military to the Jordanian-Iraqi border; and, second, due to the military status of the armed police, they were not to stay in Jordan for more than a week. On February 15, 2004, when everything was ready, the seven members of the resumption team, together with six armed police officers, left the Jordanian capital, Amman, and took five cars to drive on the Jordan-Iraq highway again. The distance from Amman to Baghdad*** was 1,000 kilometers. They left Amman in the evening and arrived at the Jordanian-Iraqi border at 12:30 p.m. at midnight to stop for a nap, and the armed police changed from civilian clothes to military uniforms and equipped themselves with bulletproof vests and a variety of weapons that they had brought with them from home. Diplomats entering Iraq for the second time also wore bulletproof vests brought by the armed police.
In fact, in the treacherous environment of Iraq, bulletproof vests are only a spiritual comfort. About to embark on the war-torn diplomatic front, Ambassador Sun couldn't help but ask the armed police lads around him, "What can bulletproof vests actually protect against?" The soldiers said, "At least it can protect against bayonets and pistols." However, in Iraq, the militants use long weapons like rifles and machine guns, as well as powerful car bombs. In fact, Sun Bigan and others have encountered bombings in Baghdad many times. He said, "Whether I go to meetings or run errands, I often encounter gunfire and car bombs on the road, and I've experienced them several times. The bombing happened a hundred or ten meters away from us such things, I have encountered at least twice." In addition to the body armor, the diplomats have protective gear in the form of two bulletproof vehicles that have been ordered but won't arrive until October. The bulletproof vests weigh seven or eight kilograms each and can only be worn over the outside of a suit, and the neck area feels very inconvenient, so they are not suitable for wearing during foreign affairs activities and when driving a car, and in the vast majority of cases they wear civilian clothes to carry out foreign affairs activities. Only the French and German diplomats have bulletproof vests that can be lined inside their suits, so they can be worn from morning to night.
The armed police accompanying them, all heavily armed in helmets and body armor, endured the heat of Baghdad. Also suffering are U.S. soldiers, whose body armor is safe but uncomfortable, many of whom have sweaty alkali caked inside their vests and whose bodies are often burned by the heat.
The road from the Iraqi border to Baghdad has always been called the "road of death". Before the war in Iraq, the road was dangerous mainly because of the natural environment. Because of the embargo, there are no airplanes, the highway is the only way to connect Iraq and Jordan. Under the high temperature of 50 to 60 degrees Celsius in Iraq, it was very dangerous to drive on the highway at high speed without maintenance, and tire blowouts and crashes could be fatal. Two foreign ambassadors and several diplomats have died in car accidents on this road. Danger also comes from post-war robberies and shootings, all of which have added to the name of this "road of death". Cars on the road had to travel in pairs. The convoy of the Chinese resumption team also drove with the local people's cars, but in dangerous areas, they formed a diamond formation, speeding up, in order to prevent the robbers' cars into the convoy, roadblock robbery. Sun Bigan's identity on this trip was the head of the temporary resumption team to Iraq and the chargé d'affaires of the Embassy in Iraq*** and China. However, because he had served as Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1990-1994), Ambassador to Iraq (1994-1998), and Ambassador to Iran (1999-2002), he was also known in Iraq as " Ambassador Sun". Although he had been to Iraq before, this time when he returned to Iraq, Ambassador Sun was faced with a completely new diplomatic situation, because Iraq had been "changed", and all of his acquaintances in the past government had collapsed, and a few of the remaining ones had died after he arrived in the country. A new mission, new faces, a new organization, a new working environment and a new way of working ...... A series of changes have created extraordinary difficulties for the diplomats.
The rescue of the seven Chinese hostages held in Iraq was a major event experienced by the resumption team after it went to Iraq.
At nine o'clock in the evening of April 11, 2004, Al Arabiya TV, based in Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, reported that seven Chinese had been kidnapped by unidentified militants in the Fallujah area. Upon learning the news, the resumption team immediately reported it to the country and carried out the rescue work according to the instructions from the country.
They first had to verify the accuracy of the news. There were three ways to do so: through the Chinese Embassy in the UAE, they checked with the headquarters of Al Arabiya TV; they also checked with local Chinese companies to see if any people were missing; and through the Chinese Embassies in Syria and Jordan, they asked about Chinese nationals who had entered Iraq from the borders of the two countries. Finally, it was confirmed that seven Chinese nationals did enter Iraq from the Jordanian-Iraqi border on the morning of April 11 and were kidnapped.
The rescue work then began rapidly. The central leadership attached great importance to the hostage incident, and President Hu Jintao immediately instructed that the lives of the hostages should be guaranteed by all means, and that the rescue work should be carried out in an all-round and multi-channel manner. In accordance with this instruction, the embassy staff carried out the rescue work through three channels: official, private and public opinion. Officially, they mainly worked with government departments, and the diplomats approached several Iraqi ministers and those in the CPA who had better relations with the Chinese side, and arranged for Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to talk directly with the Iraqi Foreign Minister about the hostage issue over the phone. The civil society, on the other hand, contacted some Iraqi partisans, especially the Muslim Presbyterian Church and the Islamic Party, to ask for their help in the rescue, and it was estimated at the time that they would have some contact with the kidnappers. Public opinion efforts were made by Ambassador Sun, who spoke on Al Jazeera, calling on the kidnappers to release the hostages as soon as possible. The hostages were safely released through a comprehensive multi-channel rescue effort. The resumption team was awarded a collective second-class merit for this.
Ambassador Sun said that when the team first entered Iraq last year, it stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad. However, the hotel has become a target of Iraqi militants due to the presence of U.S. military personnel and businessmen, and has been attacked several times together with the Palestine Hotel across the street. After careful consideration, the resumption team selected the Mansour Hotel, which had just been reopened, through the staff of a Chinese company in Iraq. It is located in the center of Baghdad, on the west bank of the Tigris River, and is relatively safe as it is open on all sides. In addition, at the time of the Chinese diplomats' arrival, the hotel had not yet been occupied by Westerners, especially U.S. and Coalition military personnel, and thus would not have been a major target of attack. In addition, the hotel is surrounded by a wall, and there are activities downstairs where they can take a walk.
Chinese diplomats and armed police*** arrived and rented half a floor of the hotel, 13 rooms on the fourth floor, partitioned the hallway and added two aluminum doors at the entrance. The Ambassador was rented a suite of rooms, the inner room being a bedroom and the outer room being used for work and for convening meetings of the resumption team. Other staff members are in standard rooms.
The Mansour was a five-star hotel in excellent condition in the 1980s. But longstanding sanctions prevented it from upgrading its ageing facilities, which were destroyed during the war. When the restoration team moved in, one of the three central elevators was working, but then the only one broke down and the team had to use the hotel's freight elevator. Eventually, even the freight elevator stopped working. North of the Mansour Hotel is Haifa Street. Just before the restoration team returned home, there had been numerous gun battles there, and the U.S. military had led Iraqi national forces there to attack so-called followers of Saddam.
Still, the Mansour Hotel provided some security for Chinese diplomats. After the security situation grew increasingly dire, the hotel's operators raised the fence and installed barbed wire, and hired local Iraqis to provide 24-hour guards. The hotel also separated the entrances and exits for vehicles, put guards on them and even placed a barrier at the west gate of the entrance.
Before the trip, the restoration team was given the task of completing the restoration work in half a year, so all the daily necessities were prepared according to the half-year period. Because of the shelf life of food and other issues, the team only brought a small amount of food, meals mainly rely on the hotel to solve the problem.
However, years of sanctions have left Iraq's water supply system without maintenance for a long time, and even five-star hotels such as Mansour are unable to provide not only clean drinking water, but also water for daily life. The water coming out of the obsolete pipes is often black. They buy some mineral water to solve the drinking problem, but water for washing face, brushing teeth, bathing or cooking is not guaranteed. Most of the vegetables are locally grown, and it is highly likely that they have been exposed to radiation from the depleted uranium shells, and almost every staff member has to go through a process of acclimatization with a bad stomach. There were two hospitals nearby with poor medical equipment. They brought some medication with them and took some on their own for minor illnesses, but had to go to Jordan for medical treatment for major illnesses. Since the six armed police officers are still on duty in Iraq, we were not able to interview them and could only learn about their life and work through the introduction of Ambassador Sun and others. In Iraq, almost every country's embassy is equipped with guards. The dispatch of armed guards to foreign diplomats is the first of its kind in Chinese diplomatic history, adding a bit of majesty to the already solemn diplomatic operations. However, behind this might is the unbearable loneliness, tension, hardship and great responsibility. In the restoration of the team's location Mansour Hotel, armed police fighters four people on duty during the day, every two people on four hours, from ten o'clock at night to eight o'clock in the morning of the ten hours of five people on duty, two hours each.
Baghdad is often short of water and electricity, and at most there is electricity for only eight hours a day. The armed guards are particularly nervous whenever the power goes out at night because it is more difficult for them to do their duty in the dark. In addition to the water problem, many people are not used to eating beef and mutton. Some soldiers can't eat beef and mutton, and their physical fitness declines. On top of that, the most unbearable thing is the monotony and tedium of life, and for them, young people in their 20s, this problem is even more prominent. From February until now, the six young armed guards have been holding down this particular post for more than half a year. If the guards continue to be retained, a change of guard will have to be considered, because they have been there for too long and are under too much pressure, and prolonged mental stress is detrimental to the execution of the mission. It is understood that the guards at the German, French and Russian embassies in Iraq are rotated once every three to six months. The restoration team was scheduled to complete the restoration work in Iraq in half a year, and the team members prepared their bags in accordance with the six-month period, but the situation has extended their term of office to more than a year (from June 2003 to August or September 2004). At present, the members of the team have completed the task of restoring the embassy, and they are returning to their home countries one after another after handing over their work. The new Chinese Ambassador to Iraq, Mr. Yang Honglin, has assumed his duties.