China: December 1, 1999

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Another source of unrest has been the increasing inability of the government to place retired members of the military in civilian jobs. Each year, some 800,000 men leave the military (15 percent of them officers) and the government has long provided jobs for these demobilized troops. But with the money losing state industries being replaced with privately owned, market driven, firms, there are fewer jobs for the government to hand out. More and more demobilized soldiers face unemployment, and they are not happy about this. The retired in officers are particularly upset, some are even demonstrating. This creates yet another potential source of resistance to the government.