China’s state-run Global Times announced the arrest Sunday of ten individuals for participating in a protest urging the Communist Party to issue promised pensions to veterans of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in October.
The Times did not identify the arrested outside of their last names or specify whether they were also military veterans. Those detained formally face charges of “violently assaulting police in the name of ‘military veterans.'” It claimed that the damage, done by “an extremely small number” of people, injured 34 people and cost $1.2 million in property damage, including the destruction of vehicles, business losses in shopping malls that allegedly had to shut down for safety reasons, and destruction of police property.
Those arrested reportedly “played major roles in organizing the event, staging the violent attacks and providing the weapons were charged for criminal acts after investigations.”
The South China Morning Post, citing Chinese state media, reported that some of the accused were alleged to have told the crowd of protesters they organized, “we should kill more people to shock the whole nation.”
The Global Times claims that some of those arrested had criminal records and used social media to create a violent situation and “claimed to be” military veterans. As the government will not identify them, it is impossible to independently verify whether they were, in fact, veterans. The arrested had a larger objective to protest in Beijing, the newspaper alleged, but had to remain in Pingdu, eastern China, after the government foiled their plan.
Xinhua, another China government propaganda outlet, published a story Sunday in tandem with the arrests vowing that Beijing will honor the promises it made to its veterans.
“China’s Ministry of Veterans Affairs has ordered relative organs at all levels to safeguard veterans’ legitimate rights and interests and handle their petitions properly,” Xinhua reported. “The notification urged efforts to provide public service jobs, organize job fairs, and implement preferential policies for companies that hires veterans.”
The Chinese government has intentionally obscured details about the Pingdu protest, such as how many of the over 300 people who participated in the protest are PLA veterans. At the time, the independent outlet Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that most of those partaking in the protest were “elderly veterans” who faced severe violence at the hands of police. Police sealed off all of Pingdu to prevent supporters of the veterans from joining in from out of town and, according to RFA, violently beat the elderly who had organized demanding the government pay the pensions promised.
While the Global Times alleges that those arrested fabricated evidence of police brutality and spread it through WhatsApp and other social media, RFA had reported in October that images of “several elderly veterans lying on gurneys at a hospital in Pingdu, one with a broken arm” did exist and encouraged locals to join the protests in support of the PLA.
RFA had also reported that the alleged Beijing protest did occur, though it was at a very small scale. RFA sources claimed that 38 Pingdu residents, all elderly veterans, had traveled to the capital requesting their pensions. Police beat them and rejected their request.
In the immediate aftermath of the Pingdu protest, the Associated Press (AP) reported that groups tracking public disturbances estimated that as many as 50 anti-government protests on the part of PLA veterans had occurred by that point in 2018. While many of those relying on pensions are older veterans, particularly those living in poorer provinces, China will also soon need to contend with the soldiers it will soon discharge in an attempt to streamline the military, which are expected to number at about 300,000. They will join another 57 million Chinese who have served in the PLA, believed to come from disproportionately humble, rural backgrounds. The veterans affairs services in China are largely decentralized, meaning veterans in the capital or one of the nation’s biggest cities is more likely to receive a higher pension for the same service.
Protests against the government of Communist Party chief Xi Jinping from sectors of the population not typically opposed to the communist regime have grown in the past year. Veterans groups, extreme Maoists, and even infuriated parents have taken to the streets objecting to the Xi government’s inability or unwillingness to address their concerns. In a twist for repressive Beijing, it has been forced to arrest its own soldiers and the most rabid leftists in the country in addition to the human rights activists and religious minorities that typically form the nation’s opposition.