The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a military veteran problem, and it knows it.
On Aug. 1, the Central Military Commission and the State Council jointly released a new regulation to give veterans preferential treatment in finding jobs after leaving the military.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping said in the directive that military service should “be a profession that is respected by the whole society” and veterans should “be among the most respected people in society.”
However, a month after that statement was issued, a large-scale protest broke out in eastern China’s Shandong Province. A woman had driven into oncoming traffic and clashed with a driver who had the right of way. She scolded and slapped him a dozen times, causing his nose to bleed. Bystanders recorded videos and posted them online. The city’s public security bureau gave the woman a 10-day detention and a fine of 1,000 yuan, or about $140.
The videos went viral, and the man revealed his veteran status to Chinese state media the next day. Many Chinese commented online that the woman’s punishment for harassing others and holding up traffic was unusually light. In the days that followed, thousands of former military personnel gathered in Qingdao, the province’s largest city, demanding a reinvestigation of the woman’s insult of one of their fellow veterans.
Success in Defending Rights
Unlike other petitioner groups, such as farmers or people forced to move out of their homes due to local government land sales, China’s veterans have a remarkable track record of defending their rights without receiving serious blowback from the regime. Eventually, the CCP established the Ministry of Veterans Affairs in 2018 after years of veteran protests.According to Shi Shan, a China expert and contributor to The Epoch Times, veterans are the only civic rights group in Chinese society with strong cohesion and a certain degree of organizational structure.
He added that the CCP does not dare to openly clamp down on this group because active soldiers would see the challenges veterans face as a preview of their future.
China has steadily reduced its military forces from 6 million at the end of the Korean War to the current 2 million. Notable reductions include a million in 1985, 500,000 in 1997, and 200,000 in 2003. The most recent reduction of 300,000 troops was announced in September 2015, under Xi’s leadership.
Since the mid-1990s, veterans have organized protests almost every year to express their dissatisfaction with the conditions they face after leaving the armed forces, primarily due to trouble with finding jobs.
Two of the largest demonstrations occurred in the years before the Veterans Affairs Ministry was created.
In October 2016, about 10,000 veterans petitioned the Central Military Commission building in Beijing, or China’s Pentagon, where they staged a sudden sit-in protest demanding better resettlement.
The authorities did not confront the protesters directly. The veterans were persuaded to return to their provinces to work out local solutions, and they left early the next day.
Yet the issues lingered. A few months later, in February 2017, tens of thousands of Chinese veterans protested in Beijing again. This time, they surrounded the offices of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s central anti-corruption watchdog. They were frustrated by local officials’ inaction in addressing their resettlement and pension issues.
Yao Cheng, a former lieutenant colonel in the Chinese navy who fled to the United States in 2016, said that about 20,000 veterans participated in the protest and that top military officials were involved in organizing it.
By then, the military had already been deeply affected by Xi’s anti-corruption campaign, which started in 2012. Several top military officials, including two former vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, had been sacked.
Who’s Footing the Bill for Veterans?
According to Yao, Xi has prioritized weaponry and drills to expand the CCP’s military capability over veterans’ benefits over the years, leading to insufficient funds for veterans from the central government.China’s crumbling economy has also added to veterans’ woes.
Under China’s veteran resettlement regulations, the subsidies and benefits veterans receive come from both the central government and local governments. Yao said that local governments bear a larger share.
But China’s local governments are running out of money.
According to the financial report released by China’s Ministry of Finance in September, from January to July 2024, out of the 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China, all provinces except Shanghai incurred fiscal deficits.
Qingdao, where the veteran incident took place, had a deficit of 7.42 billion yuan ($1 billion), for the first seven months of this year.
Shi said the CCP’s tight grip on society inevitably leads to two issues, which are also reflected in the country’s veteran problem.
First, the cost of maintaining a totalitarian regime is extremely high because it relies on violence and absolute control over the military, judiciary, legislature, and media.
Second, the ruling elites inevitably seek to maximize their interests, often at the expense of the people.
“While these problems may be less visible during periods of economic growth, social conflicts are certain to escalate when the economy enters a prolonged downturn,” Shi said.
