Koreas on track
On Chinese state television broadcasts, President Xi Jinping is often shown clad in battle fatigues inspecting troops, praising their service, and hailing the People’s Liberation Army as key to the country’s rising power.
But the nationalist drumbeat rings hollow for retired soldiers who feel left behind and who have taken to the streets in droves to complain about having to fend for themselves with meagre pensions and little support. The unrest poses a delicate political challenge for Xi, who has made his affinity for the military one of the pillars of his folksy image.
“It can only irritate veterans that on the one hand they hear propaganda that China is now a wealthy, powerful country that reveres its military, yet on the other hand they feel they have to fight for scraps,” said Neil Diamant, a professor of Dickinson University and expert on Chinese veteran issues.
Such grievances came to a head last week when more than 1000 retired soldiers from around the country descended on local government offices in the eastern city of Zhenjiang, in Jiangsu province. Demanding answers over the alleged beating of a fellow veteran by government-hired thugs after he petitioned for better benefits, they occupied a public plaza and a street for four days until police cleared the square.
“What the Zhenjiang police did this week, clearing the scene by force, it’s illegal,” said Li Xiao, a 63-year-old former artillery soldier who drove more than 200km on Friday to Zhenjiang. He said he wanted to show support for the protesters from the sidelines. “History will be the judge.”
Although veterans have been petitioning for decades for improved pensions, jobs and medical care upon leaving the PLA, frustration has been Xi Jinping (left) likes to be seen as a strong supporter of the armed forces.
bubbling in recent months. Part of the problem is that local governments are ordered by the central Government to provide greater compensation and jobs for veterans but aren’t given extra funding, Diamant said.
In March, Xi oversaw the establishment of a Ministry of Veterans Affairs to address longstanding grievances, but veterans have been frustrated by the lack of substantial change.
Li said the ministry’s “laziness” and “incompetence” meant “they haven’t come up with a single substantial law or policy for us”.
Police entered the city square before dawn on Sunday, detained protesters and held them in empty schools until authorities from their home counties arrived to take them back, protesters said.
Retired soldiers from around the country have gathered at least twice in recent months for similar protests, once in central China in June and a few weeks before that in southern Guangdong province, following reports that veterans were roughed up by government-hired thugs. Authorities were likely alarmed when hundreds of veterans turned up in Beijing in 2016 for a sit-in protest in front of PLA headquarters.
The challenge to Beijing’s ability to manage this resentment is likely to continue after China announced in 2015 it would reduce the size of the armed forces by 300,000 troops and said last year it would downsize its ground forces further while investing in its ability to project power abroad.
The angry veterans, part of an estimated 57 million former military personnel in China, pose a peculiar social stability dilemma for Beijing. They are generally deeply patriotic and wave red flags and banners during demonstrations. They profess loyalty to the Communist Party and admiration for Xi while directing their ire at corrupt local officials.
“Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people’s military now more than any other time in history,” Xi said in August.
For veterans like Li, who only two decades ago believed that the government would take care of him until he died, modern China can feel like a lonely place.
“I thought, after the country becomes strong and prosperous, then the people will live and work in peace,” he said. “But that hasn’t been the reality.” The rival Koreas have agreed to jointly study ways to improve North Korea’s outdated railways and link them with the South, as they continued to take conciliatory steps amid global efforts to resolve the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons. North Korea’s state media yesterday acknowledged interKorean discussions on “issues arising in reconnecting, updating and using the railways on the east and west coasts”, but did not say South Korea would be sending officials and experts to examine the country’s ageing rail system. The agreement Tuesday to start joint inspections of North Korea’s railways on July 24 was apparently as far as the rivals could go at the moment.
It can only irritate veterans that on the one hand they hear propaganda that China is now a wealthy, powerful country that reveres its military, yet on the other hand they feel they have to fight for scraps. Neil Diamant