SCMP, March 7, 2001: China has been quietly celebrating the construction of the vast complex of underground bomb shelters built under its main cities.
Chinese television this month has aired propaganda documentaries shot in the early 1970s when chairman Mao Zedong feared either the Soviets or Americans would unleash a nuclear attack.
Film archives show trucks driving down two-lane underground roads, workers at lathes in subterranean factories, peasants growing mushrooms and other food in cellars, children studying in schools or athletes performing gymnastics or playing table tennis - all behind enormous steel doors.
They now seem eerie and remote, as if drawn from some early science-fiction fantasy, especially when contrasted with images of the present. Glitzy shopping malls, plush restaurants and comfortable hotels are shown with a voice-over explaining why the vast effort was worthwhile.
In major cities such as Beijing, almost the entire population turned out to take part in the digging. Shelters and tunnels were dug everywhere, from the grounds of the Imperial City to the courtyard house of author Lao She. Precious objects such as the museum collections in Shanghai and Beijing were packed up and made ready to be moved to mountain shelters in Anhui and Shaanxi respectively.
Yet many questions remain unanswered. How much did the preparations cost, how many were to be saved, how were these people to be selected and would anyone have survived a nuclear attack in these crude shelters? Officials declined to give interviews.
