The Second Artillery Engineering College (SAEC) of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) greeted its 50th anniversary on October 12. Over the past 50 years, the SAEC has been constantly increasing the momentum of talent cultivation and innovation in teaching and scientific research and has cultivated nearly 30,000 graduates for the troops, of which, more than 100 have become officers above corps level, and 88% current commanders, 75% chiefs of staff and 90% directors of equipment departments of the missile brigades of the Second Artillery Force graduated from the SAEC. Therefore, the SAEC is crowned as the “officers’ cradle of missile troops” for its tremendous support to China’s strategic position as a big power.
The predecessor of the SAEC was the Xi’an Artillery School established in 1951 and the school was rebuilt into the Higher Engineering Technical College in 1959 to mainly cultivate talents for the establishment of the Chinese strategic missile troops. It came under the jurisdiction of the Second Artillery Force (SAF) in 1969 and renamed into the Second Artillery Engineering College in 1986.
As the only college of the PLA in cultivating combat operation talents of strategic missile, the feature and advantage of the SAEC are the application engineering of missile high-technology. In the new century and the new period, by closely centering on the aim of “building top-class military academy”, the entire SAEC is trying to build it into an important base of the SAF for cultivating talents, an important force for science and technology trouble-shooting, an important support for decision-making and consultation, an important position for theoretic study and an important window for military diplomacy. The SAEF currently has 5 subject categories, including engineering, science, law, military science and management. It possesses 2 state key subjects, 5 military key subjects, 2 post-doctoral mobile stations for scientific research, 15 doctorate awarding units and 27 master degree awarding units.
By Han Zhenyu and Zhang Changwei
