On Feb. 3, a 30-year-old doctoral researcher jumped from the office building of the Chongqing No. 59 Research Institute, a subsidiary of China Ordnance Equipment Group (also known as China South Industries Group; Chinese state media sometimes refers to it as NORINCO Group), one of the country’s largest state-owned weapons conglomerates. He had been on the job less than a year. His newborn son was six months old.
In the ten days before his death, the researcher worked roughly 70 hours of overtime. When he asked his supervisor for leave during his wife’s delivery, the supervisor verbally abused him for asking. A physician had diagnosed him with severe depression and anxiety in the days before he died. Management took no action.
The institute waited 40 minutes before notifying the family. Relatives were then barred from the scene. They saw the body later, at the funeral home. The institute subsequently offered what the family described as token “humanitarian” compensation.
His father, surnamed Chen, published an open letter in late March through “Teacher Li Is Not Your Teacher,” a prominent diaspora commentator on X who has built a large following by documenting Chinese censorship cases. The post was scrubbed from Chinese platforms shortly after. Chen called on China Ordnance Equipment Group to investigate management for illegal labor practices and workplace bullying, and to provide fair compensation. “A PhD who gave his youth to the national defense cause should not disappear without explanation,” he wrote. “A six-month-old should not lose his father. Two aging farmers should not bury their son.”
The letter challenged the premise that security classification shields defense institutions from labor law accountability. Employees at facilities like the No. 59 Institute occupy a legally precarious position: civilian labor protections apply in theory, but internal grievance channels are Party-controlled, and resignation carries legal risks for those who handle classified work.
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The case drew significant commentary before posts were removed. One user described a job interview at a comparable defense institute where the interviewer stated plainly that working hours ran from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., with no guarantee of leaving on time, six days a week. “This incident confirms what we were told at the interview,” the user wrote. Others warned job-seekers to research individual institutes carefully and, if conditions became unbearable, to leave rather than suffer in silence.
China Ordnance Equipment Group and the No. 59 Research Institute have issued no public statement. Chinese state media have not reported the case.
Vision Times could not independently verify the claims in the open letter.
