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 | Wednesday, May 03, 2000, updated at 12:14(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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Changing Times Challenge Army-demobilizing SystemChina 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.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 many 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 People's Liberation Army (PLA), was reported to say that the existing methods of handling demobilized army officers will have to be reformed. He said new situations in the country no longer allow for localities to employ ex-army officers in great numbers, according to the news journal sponsored by the Xinhua News Agency. China started to cut the size of the PLA in 1950, one year after the People's Republic of China was founded. In 1958, 100,000 ex-servicemen were sent to the "Great Northern Wilderness," a vast marshland in Northeast China, to help turn the once-barren area into one of the country's largest food producers. In 1985, China announced the disarmament of 1 million troops within three years, and in 1997, announced another three-year programme to demobilize 500,000 servicemen.
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