798 Art Zone Operation
1 min readJoint Factory 718 began production in 1957，amid a grandiose opening ceremony and display of Communist brotherhood between China and East Germany，attended by high officials of both countries.
The first director was Li Rui，who had been involved in the early negotiations in Berlin.The factory quickly established a reputation for itself as one of the best in China.
The Joint Factory produced a wide variety of military and civilian equipment.Civilian production included acoustic equipment for Beijing Workers’Stadium and Great Hall of the People，as well as all the loudspeakers on Tian’anmen Square and Chang’an Avenue.
Military components were also exported to China’s Communist allies，and helped establish North Korea’s wireless electronics industry.
After 10 years of operation，Joint Factory 718 was split into more manageable components，such as sub-factories 706，707，751，761，797 and 798.The first Head of sub-factory 798（the largest）was Party Branch Secretary，who played a major role in recruiting skilled workers from southern China and among returned overseas Chinese.
However，the factory came under pressure during the reforms of the 1980s.Deprived of governmental support like many state-owned enterprises，it underwent a gradual decline and was eventually rendered obsolete.By the late 1980s and early 1990s，most sub-factories had ceased production，60%of the workers had been laid off，and the remains of the management were reconstituted as a real-estate operation called“Seven-Star Huadian Science and Technology Group”in charge of overseeing the industrial park and finding tenants for the abandoned buildings.
