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Thursday 19 February 2009
Society has turned its back on us, say army veterans
But in the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of the Sino-Vietnamese war a group of veterans, including “fighting heroes” and the children of PLA generals, claimed that society had left them behind and their government had forgotten them.
Society has turned its back on us, say army veterans
Ivan Zhai 18 February 2009
Everyone from the highest officials down to the general public once honoured them for their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
But in the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of the Sino-Vietnamese war a group of veterans, including “fighting heroes” and the children of PLA generals, claimed that society had left them behind and their government had forgotten them.
“After serving the country for several decades, we feel we are nothing,” one veteran, Mr. Cheng, said.
In the absence of any large official commemorative activities on the anniversary yesterday, the veterans were planning to get together to remember the conflict themselves.
“I will call my old comrades-in-arms to meet for dinner and a drink, and recall the old days,” Mr. Cheng said.
A female veteran, surnamed Wen, said some nurses and doctors from their field hospital would return to the Guangxi battlefield to mourn the soldiers who had died.
Mr. Cheng was an artillery officer in 1979 and his troops were among the few to cross into Vietnam before February 17, 1979.
“We arrived in Guangxi around New Year’s Day, 1979. After one month of military training, we settled into the villages right behind the border. On February 15, we were told to go into Vietnam to set up observation posts for the coming barrage,” he said.
He still remembers clearly that at 6.45am on February 17, 1979, mainland troops in Guangxi and Yunnan provinces launched their attack. The Sino-Vietnamese war lasted just 17 days and all Chinese troops had withdrawn by March 6. According to official mainland figures, nearly 22,000 Chinese soldiers and militiamen, and more than 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers, were killed or injured in the conflict. But independent estimates put China’s losses at up to 30,000 soldiers in the first two weeks of the war.
Mr. Cheng said he did not know the exact number of the dead and injured on either side “but lots of them might have had the chance to survive if we’d had more advanced military equipment and medical facilities”. For example, only artillery soldiers had helmets.
Mr. Cheng left the army in the 1980s to head up a state-owned enterprise in southern China. In the late 1990s, the central government reformed the SOEs, closing, selling or merging thousands and laying off millions of workers. In the tumult, Mr. Cheng was retrenched and he lost the status - and the benefits - of being an official.
But with a monthly pension of about 2,000 yuan (HK$ 2,250), Mr. Cheng is not the worst off. He said many soldiers who returned to the countryside to work on the land had to get by on a 250 yuan monthly subsidy.
The veterans say they understand that Beijing does not want to mention the war because it needs to maintain ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Vietnam. But they say low-level officials should at least carry out all funding promises the central government announced a few years ago, entitling veterans to a subsidy if they fought in the Sino-Vietnamese war or various other conflicts since 1949.
Mr. Cheng said thousands of veterans nationwide had organised protests aimed at claiming their government money in the past three years, bringing them under close official surveillance.
“Some of our mobile phones are tapped and two police officers visited me last year, warning me not to join such protests any more,” he said. “We feel we are treated like the enemy.”
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Society has turned its back on us, say army veterans
Ivan Zhai
18 February 2009
Everyone from the highest officials down to the general public once honoured them for their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
But in the days leading up to the 30th anniversary of the Sino-Vietnamese war a group of veterans, including “fighting heroes” and the children of PLA generals, claimed that society had left them behind and their government had forgotten them.
“After serving the country for several decades, we feel we are nothing,” one veteran, Mr. Cheng, said.
In the absence of any large official commemorative activities on the anniversary yesterday, the veterans were planning to get together to remember the conflict themselves.
“I will call my old comrades-in-arms to meet for dinner and a drink, and recall the old days,” Mr. Cheng said.
A female veteran, surnamed Wen, said some nurses and doctors from their field hospital would return to the Guangxi battlefield to mourn the soldiers who had died.
Mr. Cheng was an artillery officer in 1979 and his troops were among the few to cross into Vietnam before February 17, 1979.
“We arrived in Guangxi around New Year’s Day, 1979. After one month of military training, we settled into the villages right behind the border. On February 15, we were told to go into Vietnam to set up observation posts for the coming barrage,” he said.
He still remembers clearly that at 6.45am on February 17, 1979, mainland troops in Guangxi and Yunnan provinces launched their attack. The Sino-Vietnamese war lasted just 17 days and all Chinese troops had withdrawn by March 6. According to official mainland figures, nearly 22,000 Chinese soldiers and militiamen, and more than 50,000 Vietnamese soldiers, were killed or injured in the conflict. But independent estimates put China’s losses at up to 30,000 soldiers in the first two weeks of the war.
Mr. Cheng said he did not know the exact number of the dead and injured on either side “but lots of them might have had the chance to survive if we’d had more advanced military equipment and medical facilities”. For example, only artillery soldiers had helmets.
Mr. Cheng left the army in the 1980s to head up a state-owned enterprise in southern China. In the late 1990s, the central government reformed the SOEs, closing, selling or merging thousands and laying off millions of workers. In the tumult, Mr. Cheng was retrenched and he lost the status - and the benefits - of being an official.
But with a monthly pension of about 2,000 yuan (HK$ 2,250), Mr. Cheng is not the worst off. He said many soldiers who returned to the countryside to work on the land had to get by on a 250 yuan monthly subsidy.
The veterans say they understand that Beijing does not want to mention the war because it needs to maintain ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Vietnam. But they say low-level officials should at least carry out all funding promises the central government announced a few years ago, entitling veterans to a subsidy if they fought in the Sino-Vietnamese war or various other conflicts since 1949.
Mr. Cheng said thousands of veterans nationwide had organised protests aimed at claiming their government money in the past three years, bringing them under close official surveillance.
“Some of our mobile phones are tapped and two police officers visited me last year, warning me not to join such protests any more,” he said. “We feel we are treated like the enemy.”
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