Friday, September 14, 2007

Upset Troops

The riots by demobilized soldiers in China are continuing:

Demobilized soldiers rioted at a retraining center in northeastern China overnight, the latest in a series of apparently coordinated protests against living conditions, a teacher and a human rights monitoring group said Friday.

About 1,000 ex-soldiers began smashing up classrooms and dormitories at the Qiqihar Railway Institute late Thursday night using beer bottles, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.


Spontaneous and uncoordinated riots happen a lot in China. That level of unrest seems tolerable to Peking. But coordinated violence? By ex-soldiers? Not so much.

I imagine the Chinese government will not play nice to put this down.

Apparently, this year's demobilization target is 560,000 members of the PLA. How many of these ex-soldiers, if coordinated, are a threat to the regime?