Fighting Drugs in the Daliangshan Mountains

By Mao Dan

Drugs were a lingering headache around the Daliangshan Mountains. As drug trafficking swept across the globe at the turn of the 1990s, the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture had emerged as a key gateway for drugs to seep into Sichuan from Yunnan.The area was hard hit by drug crimes, exerting a heavy toll on local communities.

In the operations against drugs in Liangshan, each one of anti-drug police officers has stayed true to their mission and original aspiration with dedication and determination. One of those outstanding officers is Zhou Maijun, a frontline drug fighter who serves now as head of the narcotics control division of the Public Security Bureau in Liangshan.

Though born in the 1980s, Zhou wears a weathered, pale look with a bony body that defies his age due to years of rough sleep during anti-drug operations. He is barely noticeable in a crowd when not wearing his police uniform. From his appearance alone,you probably wouldn't guess that this dark-skinned guy is a hero of extraordinary bravery in the battle against the drugs trade. Since joining the narcotics control force nine years ago, he has organized or participated in cracking over 150 cases relating to drug crimes,arresting more than 700 suspects and seizing over640 kilograms of drugs. For his stellar performance, Zhou has earned multiple honors, such as "China's most outstanding grassroots police officer", "Hero and role model in the national public security system", and"Model Civil Servant."

A Reminder of the Original Mission

Zhou was the son of ordinary workers, and none of his family had served in the police force. Before becoming a police officer, the profession seemed vaguely familiar to him. He recalled that his aspiration to be a police officer originated from a chance encounter in his college days.

Early one rainy morning, Zhou was riding the bus and caught sight of something "fluorescent green"outside the window. In the torrential rain, Zhou saw two police officers in reflective green vests, one holding an umbrella and the other carrying an elderly man on his back. The lettering "police" on their vests glowed."The police are what people can rely on in a storm,"Zhou thought. The sentiment was like a ray of light that pierced Zhou's heart and planted a seed in his soul.

Zhou joined the police force in 2006 upon his graduation from college. He has since worked at a local police station, a criminal investigation division, and a drug enforcement bureau. On his motivation to join the police, Zhou says: "To serve the people like veteran police officers underpins my decision to join law enforcement."

"You become a man on a mission once putting on the police uniform," Zhou believes. To fulfill the great and noble duty that comes with that mission, Zhou has been on alert constantly for over 3,000 days and nights during the past nine years, like a sharp sword always poised to stab at the heart of criminal elements.He has driven at the life-risking speed of 160 km/h along winding and rugged mountain roads in pursuit of suspects; in deep mountains and forests, he has painstakingly traced the footprints of criminals inch by inch; in the depths of winter, he has raced to the Tibetan plateau for a midnight raid. He has defied dangers to break suspects' mental resistance and learn who is the boss behind their operations, battling drug dealers with both wits and courage.

Fighter of Extraordinary Valor

Many moments in anti-drug campaigns demonstrate Zhou's extraordinary courage. He clearly remembers every perilous arrest, every day and night in pursuit of drug dealers, every heart-rending farewell to his family, and every second of peace he has cherished so much after returning from the edge of death.

"Survival is never certain when we perform these tasks. However, we are preoccupied with how best to fulfil our mission, putting aside concerns about personal safety. In the face of so much unpredictability, we must stay fully focused throughout the operations to catch the suspects," Zhou says.

In one operation, Zhou and his team rushed to intercept what appeared to be a drug-trafficking truck.At the sight of the police, the driver rolled up the window and prepared to make a potentially violent escape, which immediately alerted Zhou to the driver's intention. Swiftly Zhou jumped onto the truck, trying to open the door by force, when the cornered suspect slammed on the gas pedal and bumped off the police car .Zhou hung on the door of the truck precariously and was dragged for several hundred meters, before jumping off to a roadside bush when the truck slowed down a little bit to make a turn. Ignoring the bruises and pain,he fired several shots at the truck's tires, bursting them and forcing the vehicle to stop. The suspect eventually surrendered himself to the police.

This is just one of the many heart-stopping stories about Zhou's life-risking fights against drug traffickers.

Going undercover is routine work for the anti-drug police, and sometimes this means staying in a confined space for several days straight, resulting in great mental and psychological strain. It is especially a physical and mental challenge to observe from inside a car during summer. To stay invisible from the outside, officers cannot turn on the air conditioning or roll down the windows for hours on end, leading to a lack of fresh air,sultry heat, and suffocating tension inside the car. Just as a hunter stalks sneaky prey, so the police officers must act with extreme patience and caution, for any slight negligence may abort the whole operation and even cost their lives.

"Drug traffickers are all outlaws. You need to be more audacious than them to catch them," Zhou says.

In 2015, Zhou and his team went to a border region on a drug crime case. After two days and two nights of hunting, they detected traces of the suspect on a mountain road. The remote road normally sees few vehicles pass by, so the sudden appearance of an all-terrain vehicle alerted the suspect, who immediately drove away in frenzy. With gunshots fired, a life-and-death pursuit took place on the narrow mountain road, and any carelessness could lead to a fall into the roadside abyss.Staying calm, Zhou floored the gas pedal to intercept the suspect, who abandoned the car in panic and jumped offa slope. Zhou halted his car immediately, leaping out of the car and scrambling down the hillside. Despite the physical pain, he threw himself at the suspect at the bottom of the slope and pinned the latter down with bleeding hands until his fellow officers arrived. After he arrested the suspect, Zhou looked back at where he had jumped from—a steep slope over 20 meters tall and nearly 70 degrees steep. "On my second thought of the cliff-like slope, I was really terrified. Battling on the cliff as high as a 6- or 7-story building means one stroke of bad luck could kill you," Zhou recalls jokingly.

"He is quite a daredevil police officer," the drug dealer said in anger during interrogation.

The nine years in drug control operations may not be an extended duration in one's whole life, but they are very long indeed for Zhou because they mean so much to him. Zhou has devoted his entire youth to this nine-year engagement, marked by a mixture of tears and joy, hardships and rewards. When someone questioned him if it has been worth it, he said with absolute certainty, "It is as long as you guarantee the people a safe and peaceful life and fulfill the duties that come with the police uniform."

During the Spring Festival in 2019, a holiday traditionally for family reunion, Zhou left home and led a team to hunt down drug dealers on the Tibetan Plateau at an altitude over 4,000 meters. In the bitter weather colder than 10 degrees below zero, the team cracked a huge case of drug trafficking in what is called"the world's highest town", (Litang County, Ganzi Prefecture) arresting 38 suspects and seizing over 70 kilograms of drugs.

Leaving a drug-free world to later generations

Zhou is not only a lionhearted, resourceful fighter on the battlefront against drugs, but also a competent,distinguished training officer who shares his abundant experience with trainees. He has been appointed by the public security department of Sichuan province as the leading instructor of the select anti-drug course on"insights into local drug control situations and tactics for busting local drug cases". Responsible for teaching how to investigate and disrupt drug-related crimes at combat training centers across the province, he has been hailed as "Mr. Pulse" by local anti-drug police for his ability to accurately take the pulse of drug trafficking and perfectly time anti-drug campaigns.

"Leaving a drug-free world to later generations is a calling for every anti-drug police officer of our era and a daunting task that we must fulfill. Anti-drug work means more innovation, pioneering work, and forethought, rather than just a brave fight against drug criminals," says Zhou determinedly.

"Poverty is a key element that contributes to the rampancy of drug abuse and crimes. Many people got mired in drug abuse as a result of poverty, which in turn deteriorates their living conditions. Cracking down on drug crimes to eradicate drug abuse, establishing drug rehabilitation centers, and providing jobs for patients under drug treatment—all these are effective measures to alleviate poverty."

How to comprehensively curb the rampant drug abuse and crimes and eliminate poverty in Liangshan has become new challenges facing Zhou and his team.To meet the challenges, they have thrown themselves into the research and establishment of a drug control system for this area.

In the daytime, Zhou conducted field research in mountainous villages, and at night he recorded what he saw and his thoughts on his computer. He worked around the clock for numerous days, looking through hundreds of documents. His efforts meant Zhou and his colleagues succeeded in compiling a dozen anti-drug research reports and put forward a range of schemes for establishing a drug control system that fits the local situation of Liangshan. Now the implementation of those schemes is underway. In 2018, the "drug control campaign in Liangshan" was put into operation.Since then, a series of working mechanisms have been introduced, including the "1+15+N" drug rehabilitation system with local characteristics, and the 3+3 closed-loop drug treatment and rehabilitation regime. Those mechanisms have taken drug control as part of efforts for poverty alleviation and social wellbeing, facilitating an unprecedented battle against poverty through the drug control campaign. In 2020,around 13,800 registered poor drug addicts in Liangshan were lifted out of poverty, and the problem of becoming poor and slipping back into poverty due to drug abuse was curbed effectively.

Now the phenomena of drug abuse and drug crimes in Liangshan are changing for the better with each passing day. "The next generation will grow in a healthier environment. We risk life and limb to fulfil the dream: a 'drug-free world'. I think the younger generation will understand why the elder generation has been committed to this great calling," Zhou says firmly.

With the unrelenting efforts of generation after generation of local drug fighters, seven key counties in Liangshan including Zhaojue and Butuo, which had been haunted by drug crimes, became drug-free in 2020. In October of that year, the China National Narcotics Control Committee convened a nationwide drug combating conference in Liangshan, speaking highly of "the era-defining achievements in local antidrug operations and the fundamental improvement in the local drug control situation".

On July 1, 2021, an unforgettable day in his life, Zhou was invited as a representative of national outstanding public security officers to attend the celebration of the centenary of the Communist Party of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. As gun salutes fired, Zhou's eyes brimmed with tears as he was reminded of his beloved but late comrades. "This great time of peace and prosperity is a result of the arduous efforts of workers from all walks of life, including drug fighters like us. My glory is attributed to all the late as well as the still charging-forward comrades who fought and are fighting for the dream of a drug-free world," he said.