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		</div><p>More than 1,000 protesters walked and chanted in front of China&#8217;s defence ministry today, the latest apparent demonstration by soldiers as the world&#8217;s largest standing military modernises and downsizes.</p>
<p>The protesters stood for several hours in front of the Bayi building in central Beijing, home of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense.</p>
<p>Many wore green fatigues bearing the hammer-and-sickle logo of China&#8217;s ruling Communist Party.</p>
<p>The purpose of their demonstration was unclear.</p>
<p>Protesters approached by The Associated Press declined to be interviewed, and censors blocked searches on social media about retired soldiers or the Chinese defence ministry.</p>
<p>Hundreds of police and plain clothes security officers surrounded the protesters, hemming them in with buses and police vehicles.</p>
<p>While Chinese authorities routinely suppress discussions about the military and soldiers&#8217; issues, one human-rights activist, Huang Qi, said veterans have staged more than 50 protests this year alone.</p>
<p>However, demonstrations on such a large scale are extremely rare in the centre of the heavily policed capital.</p>
<p>Two demonstrators said they were veterans who wanted the government to address military pensions, but they did not want to discuss the issue with foreign media.</p>
<p>The protesters declined to give their names.</p>
<p>Liu Feiyue, editor of the website Minsheng Guancha, which monitors civil rights issues, said he was told by retired soldiers that other ex-soldiers were present.</p>
<p>&#8220;They protested because they don&#8217;t have a job now after serving a long period of time in the army, some for a dozen years,&#8221; Liu said.<br />
&#8220;They are asking for employment.&#8221;</p>
<p>China&#8217;s armed forces are undergoing a large-scale modernisation to become a nimble organisation that can better handle conflicts at sea and in the air.</p>
<p>Those measures have gained pace as China builds up its presence in the South China and East China Seas amid territorial disputes and as relations have soured with self-governing Taiwan &#8211; which China claims as its own territory to be unified with by force if necessary.</p>
<p>President Xi Jinping announced last year that the 2.3 million-member People&#8217;s Liberation Army would cut 300,000 personnel but little has been said about the cost or where the surplus troops would go.</p>
<p>Veterans have staged sit-ins and protests for several years over low or absent pensions and an inability to find work outside the military.</p>
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