Soldiers protest army cuts outside Chinese defence ministry

More than 1,000 protesters walked and chanted in front of China’s defence ministry Tuesday, the latest apparent demonstration by soldiers as the world’s largest standing military modernises and downsizes, reports The Associated Press. The protesters stood for several hours in front of the Bayi building in central Beijing, home of the Chinese Ministry of National Defence. Many wore green fatigues bearing the hammer-and-sickle logo of China’s ruling Communist Party. The purpose of their demonstration was unclear. Protesters declined to be interviewed, and censors blocked searches on social media about retired soldiers or the Chinese defence ministry. Hundreds of police and plain-clothes security officers surrounded the protesters, hemming them in with buses and police vehicles. While Chinese authorities routinely suppress discussions about the military and soldiers’ issues, one human-rights activist, Huang Qi, said that veterans have staged more than 50 protests this year alone. However, demonstrations on such a large scale are extremely rare in the centre of the heavily policed capital. Liu Feiyue, editor of the website Minsheng Guancha, which monitors civil rights issues, said he was told by retired soldiers that other ex-soldiers were present. China’s armed forces are undergoing a large-scale modernisation to become a nimble organisation that can better handle conflicts at sea and in the air. Those measures have gained pace as China builds up its presence in the South China and East China Seas amid territorial disputes and as relations have soured with self-governing Taiwan — which China claims as its own territory to be unified with by force if necessary. President Xi Jinping announced last year that the 2.3-million-member People’s Liberation Army would cut 300,000 personnel but little has been said about the cost or where the surplus troops would go. Veterans have staged sit-ins and protests for several years over low or absent pensions and an inability to find work outside the military. It wasn’t clear if anyone had been arrested Tuesday. Local police did not respond to faxed questions, and no one answered the phone at the press office of the defence ministry.