China’s 57 million military veterans in line for better support with new dedicated civil service ranks

Addressing the programme’s launch ceremony in Ordos on July 8, veterans affairs vice-minister Ma Feixiong said the graduating pilot team would offer “an innovative way to promote the efficiency of the service for veterans’ support”.

“It answers the practical needs of improving the ability and quality of grass-roots staff and [will] stabilise and expand the workforce. It will definitely provide effective assistance to promote the high-quality development of veterans’ work,” Ma was quoted as saying by local media.

The Ministry of Veterans Affairs was set up in April 2018, following a number of protests by ex-military personnel over retirement benefits and perceived poor treatment of demobilised troops. These included demonstrations in Beijing in late 2016 and early 2017 by thousands of veterans, most of whom had fought in Vietnam in 1979 – China’s last major foreign military operation.

According to the ministry, there were about 110,000 members of staff and more than 970,000 full-time and part-time contract workers serving in over 624,000 local veterans’ service centres as of the end of last year.

The centres keep track of veterans within their jurisdictions, provide policy consultation, hear out their grievances and help them with resettlement, finding new jobs and supporting their business ventures.

With the veterans affairs specialist position now under the ministry payroll, many of the contract workers, who are veterans themselves, would have a good chance to become full-time government employees.