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 global 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 meager 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 1,000 retired soldiers, including locals and many others who rushed in from around the country, descended on local government offices in the eastern city of Zhenjiang, in Jiangsu province. For four days, they occupied a public plaza and a street, singing and chanting as they demanded answers over the alleged beating of a fellow veteran by government-hired thugs after he petitioned for better benefits, supporters said.
Police cleared the square in the early hours of Sunday with relatively little violence. But scenes of paramilitary police and armored vehicles lining Zhenjiang’s streets further exacerbated the fraught relationship between the…
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