Supply Depots: If there is any certainty to an atomic exchange, it's the fact that people will be in dire need of all kinds of resources. By establishing a system of supply depots, filled to the brim with all necessary nutritional and medical goods, we can keep whoever survives this onslaught alive for just a little longer.
Deep Archives: In the blaze of nuclear hellfire, it is all too easy for the sources of human knowledge and culture to be lost. Thankfully, an underground library is light on maintenance, and can be placed anywhere you're willing to dig. As long as we remember where we put the books and microfiches, our descendants should be happy to receive them.
Missile Defense Installations: The simplest way of fighting nuclear missiles is to deploy even more missiles in defense. If we surround our urban and strategic centers with batteries of anti-air weapons, we can keep the enemy rockets at bay. A handful of them, at least.
Hydroelectric Hardening: China's geography is uniquely suited to the development of hydroelectric power, and the state has made good use of this fact for the past century. Unfortunately, these massive constructions also tend to be a potent target for the enemy's nuclear arsenal. To mitigate such a catastrophe, we should reinforce our existing dams, and set some exacting construction standards for the next generation of hydroelectric infrastructure.
Refurbish Urban Emergency Services: Our great cities face many perils on a day to day basis, but a nuclear event would dwarf them all. To manage the immediate crisis of such a calamity, we should outfit our brave first responders with the best equipment available. That way, they can save a few more souls before they die of acute radiation poisoning.
Nuclear Intensification: Compared to the reactionary camp, the nation of China is somewhat lacking in the field of nuclear power. Since coal is growing ever scarcer, and Siberian gas won't last forever, we had best transition to a fuel that is slightly more sustainable: uranium. While fusion power would be altogether preferable, this will have to wait until the relevant research pans out.
Simplified Water Treatment: Water, the giver of life. One of the five elements! Indispensable to any kind of civilization. By making our water treatment plants sufficiently 'low tech', we can ensure their operation after much of the supply system has fallen apart. This might come at the cost of some short-term efficiencies, but that's the price of survival.
Expand Urban Shelters: This episode of atomic terror is hardly the first, and so we've already established a network of fallout shelters throughout many of our major cities. In recent years, however, many of these have been neglected, or requisitioned towards other ends. Let us renovate these underground palaces of the people, and make sure that as many as possible can survive the initial wave of destruction.
Hermetic Metro Systems: The superiority of socialist urbanism is proven by our robust public transport systems, which facilitate the movement of the masses without the wasteful, polluting methods of the car-addled Americans. How great it would be if these systems could also prove our salvation in times of nuclear crisis! This is exactly the case with our urban metro network, which are already sufficiently buried to make for good shelters. And if we can seal them against the poisonous post-nuclear environment, they would be even better.
Model Communes: If there is one thing that should survive a war with the imperialists, it is the People's Way of Life. In order to preserve that, we should endeavor to establish ideal, self-sufficient villages across the nation, expressing both their cultural peculiarities and the universal appeal of socialism. These model towns would require model workers to inhabit them, but those shouldn't be too hard to find.
Institute for Radiation Medicine: One of the most pressing research needs is a deeper understanding of what radiation does to the human body. If its toxic influence can be managed, even cured, then surviving the Century of Annihilation becomes a lot easier. And by dedicating an entire research institute to this mission, we can accelerate the pace at which results come our way.
Institute for Radiation Biology: Even if the human being can learn to secure itself against radiation, the natural environment won't be so lucky. The nation's various ecosystems are sure to be overwhelmed by the mutagenic effects of nuclear fallout, and there is no telling what the results of such a process might be. To control for such manifest uncertainties, we should establish a specialized research institute, where pioneering biologists can try and bolster our precious plants and animals against the radioactive horizon.
Ministry University: Most major ministries are affiliated with one university or another, and even the party has its own schools. In order to raise the next generation of preparedness officials (if there is to be one), we would do well to get an academy of our own. This would also become a center for our larger research effort, making the latter a lot easier.
Shelter Longevity Research: No shelter can last forever, and our current designs don't last long at all. If any part of the Chinese people is to survive, then we need to make some important strides in the fields of hermetic sealing, atmospheric filtration, and water recycling. With the proper degree of innovation, we can turn our existing installations into true Bunkers of the People.
Ultra-Preservatives: In time, everything rots, including the food in our shelters. The longer we can make it last, though, the longer its inhabitants can survive. Ironically, radiation might be a good candidate for enhancing the longevity of foodstuffs, but we'll still need to experiment with it to see if there are any negative side effects.
Auxiliary Robotics Applications: As part of backing us on the State Council Commission, Minister Zhang Lifeng wants us to work on his pet robotics project. Although Minister Ren hates the idea, the deployment of android assistants could lessen the burden on our personnel, to say nothing of the economy as a whole. Let's start by iterating on the established designs, and see how they might be specialized.
Designate Safe Zones: The immediate aftermath of an atomic exchange is sure to involve a great deal of movement, as those who can't shelter locally head for areas that are perceived to be safer. Often, such areas are not safe at all. By incorporating the ones which are into our official wartime evacuation plans, we can make sure that a lot more people survive the first few weeks of fallout.
Shock Labor Battalions: Despite our adherence to a policy of full employment, there are always at least a few million 'inactive' workers among our ranks. They can be graduates who have yet to be assigned, farmers who aren't sowing or reaping, or industrial workers whose enterprise has been liquidated for underperformance. Whoever they are, their labor can and should be utilized. By deploying them towards a construction project affiliated with our ministry, we can make its completion go that much faster.
Move Industry to the Interior: As in the original Third Front Campaign, the best way to keep our industrial base from being bombed is to move it. While physical distance from our enemy makes less of a difference than it used to back then, it will still be harder to bomb our factories if they are sufficiently spread out.
Recycling Campaign: The capitalist mode of production relies on the chronic overproduction of consumer commodities, leaving masses of junk in its wake. As a socialist nation in crisis, we cannot afford to be so wasteful. Instead, we should encourage the people to be as frugal as possible, and to find creative new uses for the refuse they produce. This will also prepare them for the hardship to come.
Every Park A Farm: Feeding the urban population will get harder as the present energy crisis deepens. To make up for it, we should encourage the proletariat to take to the local soil, and turn every bit of empty urban space into a food garden. Since many of them have a peasant background, and seeds can be made available from the reserves, this should be an easy campaign.
Request More Funding: If the budgeted resources prove insufficient, we can always ask for more. Any disruption to the existing plan would be bothersome, but with a bit of political wrangling, some discretionary funds could be made available.
Transfer Resources between Departments: The current departments are quite specialized, meaning that any transfer of resources between them could prove difficult and inefficient. Still, if there is a pressing need for such funds in one particular area, we may have to attempt it nevertheless.
Influence the Next Five Year Plan: The organizing of the Twenty-Third Five Year Plan is in full swing now, and our ministry will be an important part of its major adjustments. This gives us a unique opportunity to acquire more rights and/or responsibilities. We better not miss it.
Industrial Decentralization Policy: Our efforts will inevitably involve a lot of industrial relocation. To make this work a little easier, we could be proactive in preventing the further concentration of our strategic industries. While it would take a lot of influence to shift the policy of the State Planning Commission, this change must be instituted sooner rather than later.
Requisition the Grain and Materials Reserve: The State Planning Commission has long held onto the nation's reserves of grain and strategic materials. Since our ministry would be the perfect organization to administer these resources instead, we had best make the appropriate requests to the State Council. Minister Ren's personal connections will surely come in handy in this endeavor.
Requisition Construction Factories: The more factories at our disposal, the more projects we'll be able to complete. The other ministries might not enjoy our appropriations, but then again, they are not working towards the Survival of Socialism For All Time. With the right maneuvers, all they'll be able to do is grumble about it.
Requisition Laboratories: Our academicians are a strategic resource all their own, and are constantly competed over by the nation's various research institutes. If we want to acquire more of them ourselves, then we need the requisite laboratories to house them. Luckily, through the use of our political influence, we can appropriate these from the other ministries. Our research is more important, after all.
Expand Our Coordinating Capacity: Our partnerships with the other ministries and party organizations are vital to pursuing our projects, both in the resources they afford us and in the research they give us access. It may therefore be worth it to expand the amount of joint projects we are committed to, even if this will require us to expand our bureaucratic throughput as well.
Set a Ministerial Labor Standard: As a government ministry, it is our prerogative to oversee the labor relations within our departments and workplaces. While we still need to abide by the center's own edicts, there is a degree of leeway in how we distribute bonuses and direct the cadres. Much of this policy setting is admittedly a question of norms rather than laws, but if the trunk of the tree sets a good example, then surely the branches will follow.
