1,000 protest cuts to Chinese army near Beijing defense ministry
FORUM Staff
More than 1,000 people, many donning green camouflage fatigues, protested outside China’s defense ministry in Beijing in October 2016, according to The Associated Press.
The protesters, some chanting and waving banners and national flags, expressed their discontent with the Chinese government’s downsizing of its military and its subsequent treatment of servicemen who have been pushed out of the world’s largest army, various wire services reported.
“Our rights and benefits to be transferred from military posts to suitable civilian work have been violated,” read one banner, according to Reuters.
Liu Feiyue, editor of the Minsheng Guancha website, which covers civil rights issues, told The Associated Press that former soldiers were protesting “because they don’t have a job now after serving a long period of time in the army, some for a dozen years,” Liu said. “They are asking for employment.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping said in September 2015 that China would decrease the size of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), by 300,000 to bring the force size down to about 2 million troops with most of the cuts occurring before 2017, The New York Times newspaper reported. The cuts are the fourth in a series made since the 1980s. China previously reduced its force strength by 1 million in 1985; 500,000 in 1997; and 200,000 in 2003, according to The Diplomat online magazine.
As part of an overall military modernization program, China is instead investing in upgrading weapons for its navy and air force, various media reported. The troop reduction is designed to rebalance China’s military to increase the size of the navy and air force relative to the army, Xu Guangyu, a former Chinese military officer, told the Los Angeles Times newspaper after the army cuts were announced in 2015.
Even when the downsizing is complete, China’s army will remain the world’s largest, The Diplomat reported.
China announced in March 2016 that its military spending would climb to about U.S. $150 billion in 2016. The increase of about 7 to 8 percent represents the smallest increase in six years and mirrors the nation’s economic slowdown, The Washington Post newspaper reported. Its military budget increased 10.1 percent in 2015. China spends about a quarter of what the U.S. spends each year on defense, The Washington Post reported.
Chinese veterans have held demonstrations more than 50 times in 2016, human rights activist, Huang Qi, told The Associated Press. Such large protests are uncommon in China, where authorities typically quash discussions about military issues and don’t allow such demonstrations near the capital.
Hundreds of Chinese police, with the help of buses and police vehicles, blocked off the area where the demonstrations occurred near the Bayi building, which houses the defense ministry, Reuters and The Associated Press reported.
