Chinese People's Liberation Army Rocket Force's two official Weibo accounts, created on February 14, 2019, have published their first posts on the Lantern Festival, February 19, 2019.
中国人民解放军火箭军2月14日开通的两个官方微博在2月19日元宵节分别发布第一条微博。
Already followed by tens-of-thousands, this marks the first time the PLA Rocket Force has 'gone public.' Due to the air of mystery surrounding the division of the People's Liberation Army, the Rocket Force's presence on a social media platform comes as somewhat of a surprise. One account is simply named "PLA Rocket Force." As the Rocket Force's main combat equipment is the Dongfeng series missiles, the other account is named "Dongfeng Kuaidi," or "Eastwind Delivery."
Speculation1 is the former will be used to publish official and formal news, while the latter will be for communicating and interacting more directly with the public.
The initial post on the "PLA Rocket Force" Weibo account includes the new version of the Rocket Force's
publicity2 film, which shows
diversified3 missile launch vehicles, various models of rockets and pictures of previous exercises and launches. The post published by "Dongfeng Kuaidi" is more down-to-earth, simply declaring the account is in use in a way that netizens in China are familiar with.
Once published, the two accounts began receiving thousands of
followers4, including from hundreds of
certified6 official accounts. The
debut7 posts have been retweeted more than 20,000 times. The "PLA Rocket Force" had 330k followers as of Tuesday afternoon, while, "Dongfeng Kuaidi" had some 500k followers. The
follower5 numbers continue to surge up.