He Zhengyang, a young corporal in the People’s Armed Police (PAP) Beijing contingent, has spent the better part of two years standing watch at Xinhua News Agency’s No. 3 sentinel post. He volunteered for service in ‘‘hardship and remote’’ units and, as of 31 January 2026, had completed his 700th day on duty in a booth little larger than a bathtub.
The post is a study in contrast: 150 metres from the barracks and just 1.5 square metres of heated shelter, a cramped vantage point from which He and his colleagues patrol the rhythms of a state institution rather than battlefields. Winters bite through thick coats into the bones; routine drills, sentry shifts and low-voiced training punctuate long hours of silence, broken only by a stray cat the men call “Sergeant Cat” and the falling leaves of a lone ginkgo tree.
What began as repetitive, anonymous work turned into a source of professional purpose. Young men arrive hoping to distinguish themselves; theirs is a steady apprenticeship in endurance and attentiveness. He rehearses hypothetical emergencies—an intruder armed with a knife, a nearby electric scooter on fire—and yet most days the extraordinary never comes, leaving only the steady practice of vigilance.
Moments of national theatre, however, refract back onto the sentry post. On 3 September 2025, during the massive parade marking the 80th anniversary of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, He watched fighter jets roar overhead and learned that a squad leader from his unit marched in the formation. The proximity to spectacle transformed his sense of duty: the men on the booth feel, rightly, that guarding Xinhua is linked to the wider state performance the world sees on its screens.
The human details accumulate into allegiance. A ginkgo’s seasonal cycle, the companionship of a stray cat, the quiet restraint of soldiers suppressing training shouts so as not to disturb journalists—these small things anchor men who often suppress private grief while on duty. One squad member spent Lunar New Year’s Eve learning of his grandmother’s death only after his unit shielded him from the news; another, an eleven-year sentinel, returned years later to circle the same building with his wife.
Those anecdotal scenes sit within a larger institutional logic. The PAP, which shoulders internal security, ceremonial duties and protection of sensitive sites in Beijing, is charged with safeguarding not just buildings but the institutions that articulate the state’s narrative. Xinhua is the state’s primary wire service; a sentry post at its entrance is both practical perimeter security and a symbol of the physical defence of the Party’s information apparatus.
The profile of life at the post also reflects an informational strategy: humanise the force, highlight ordinary sacrifice and tie personal stories to national events. For domestic audiences this narrative bolsters legitimacy and morale, depicting the PAP not only as guardians against explicit threats but as custodians of everyday normality. At the same time, many of these young men will demobilise before Xinhua’s 95th anniversary in November 2026, raising questions about continuity of manpower and the persistence of institutional memory.
He will leave service in about thirty days; in his kit is a small Xinhua-branded refrigerator magnet showing ginkgo leaves falling, a souvenir that mirrors the view from his sentry post. Another recruit from Guangxi will take his place and, like many before him, accept the anonymity that comes with guarding a building that broadcasts the state’s voice to the world. Their labour is quiet, often unseen, and yet deeply stitched into the rituals of modern Chinese statecraft.