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 | Monday, April 24, 2000, updated at 09:54(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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China Demobilizes 3.4 Million Army Officers in 50 Years: Outlook WeeklyChina has demobilized 3.4 million army officers over the past five decades and helped them find civilian jobs in government and judicial departments and in non- government organizations, according to the April 24 issue of Outlook Weekly.In 1950, one year after the People's Republic of China was founded, the government began cutting the size of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), according to the magazine. In 1952, the well-known Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps was established with 170,000 former PLA soldiers and officers, and the corps has played a big role in developing and safeguarding the northwestern border area of the country. In 1958, 100,000 ex-servicemen were sent to the "Great Northern Wilderness," a vast marshland in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, and the once-barren area has been turned into one of the country's largest food producers. In 1985, China announced the unilateral disarmament of one million troops within three years, and in 1997, announced another three-year program to demobilize 500,000 servicemen. The government has attached great importance to the relocation of former army officers, many of whom have become standouts in various fields. However, along with the establishment of a market economy in China and the deepening of reforms in all fields, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the government to help these ex-officers find civilian jobs without increasing pressure on local governments and other institutions. Yu Yongbo, a member of the Central Military Commission and director of the General Political Department of the PLA, was reported to say that the existing methods of handling demobilized army officers will have to be reformed, as the old system has brought increasingly greater pressure to localities and is not consistent with the new situation. State Councilor Wang Zhongyu said a new mobilization and reemployment system with China's own characteristics, and in conformity with China's socialist market economy and civilian personnel system reforms and army officer system reforms, must be instituted.
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