On a recent video call that bridged nearly a hundred years, 99-year-old veteran Lu Chen sat in an old-style uniform and looked into a screen at the fresh faces of the People’s Liberation Army’s so-called “Red Ninth” company. The unit and the man share an unusual commonality: both trace their origins to 1927, a birth year that tied their narratives together through war, revolution and service. The soldiers on the other end of the line are today stationed on the Tibetan plateau, a posting whose geography underlines the enduring strategic role of the unit even as it has been reorganized and redeployed multiple times over the decades.
Lu and the company made a promise during the call: in 2027, when Lu turns 100 and the PLA and the company each mark their centenaries, they will meet again—separated by distance but united by ceremony and memory. The promise was framed as an act of tribute, connecting the generation that fought to found a new China with the current generation that vows to defend it. State and military outlets have emphasized the emotive power of such reunions to narrate continuity, loyalty and sacrifice across the party-army relationship.
The scene is more than nostalgia. 2027 is a symbolic milestone for the PLA and for the Chinese Communist Party’s portrayal of its legitimacy: a ritualized reaffirmation of the armed forces’ role in state-building and national defence. Presenting a veteran born in the same year as his unit’s formation, and showing him exchanging vows with young soldiers in a frontier posting, highlights an institutional narrative of unbroken lineage that the Chinese leadership prizes. Those narratives are routinely used to bolster morale, aid recruitment and reinforce obedience to civilian (party) command.
The company’s long posting in Tibet adds a geopolitical subtext. The plateau remains a sensitive strategic theatre for Beijing, particularly after the 2020 border clashes with India and ongoing infrastructure and force-modernization efforts in the region. Framing a centennial reunion around a unit that has served there allows the state to blend human-interest storytelling with an implicit reminder of the PLA’s operational reach and readiness along key frontiers.
The medium also matters: a video link creates a modern form of commemoration, marrying digital connectivity with traditional martial ritual. The image of an elderly instructor and young troops pledging to meet in 2027 is a neat piece of domestic PR—it humanizes the military while underlining discipline and intergenerational transmission of values. For international audiences, it signals how Beijing will mark its centenary with carefully staged displays of continuity rather than purely technical demonstrations of military power.
If the promise is fulfilled, the 2027 events will be less about a single reunion than about the broader performance of national memory. Expect coordinated ceremonies, heightened media coverage, and curated moments that fuse personal sacrifice with state symbolism. For policymakers watching from abroad, the significance lies not in the warmth of the exchange but in how such narratives will be used inside and outside China to frame the PLA’s evolution and its role in Beijing’s conception of national strength.