Outside the Sell Drunk Supermarket on Fangcaodi Street in Beijing, People’s Liberation Army soldiers are bashing down low walls in the sweltering heat as an excavator digs up a narrow strip of land outside the shopfront, which still has beer kegs and cases on display.
Further along the leafy street, shop assistants from Jenny Lou’s, a handy supermarket selling everything from Kerrygold cheddar to Japanese rice crackers, is packing up small trees that used to stand outside the entrance. The Shard Box Store, which sells jewellery made from pieces of porcelain smashed during the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, is an empty shell, as is the Russian restaurant next door.
The landlord is moving the tenants on, but this is no ordinary urban redevelopment. In this case, the owner of the building is the mighty People’s Liberation Army itself, and the shops are being closed because the military chiefs have been ordered to stop earning extra income from renting property to civilian businesses.
The PLA owns the whole city block – a huge barracks from where you can often hear rousing patriotic songs and, on Saturday nights, karaoke. The closures are part of the biggest restructuring of the world’s largest standing army, with 2.3 million personnel, since the 1950s.
President Xi Jinping, who as well as leading the Communist Party and being head of state is chief of the Central Military Commission, said the army is now about "winning wars" and has ordered the military to end their business affairs. The armed forces must be "loyal, clean and responsible".
Territorial disputes
The move is part of a policy aimed at getting the army into better shape to face challenges such as the need to back China's claims in the South China Sea, especially since an international tribunal in The Hague ruled against China's activities in the area.
“I can’t renew my lease, the military wants to take it back,” said one clothes shop owner.
The PLA has been running pilot projects to try to get out of its commercial services in areas such as property, hotels, media and healthcare – beds in PLA hospitals are much sought-after because of a general shortage of healthcare.
On the Weibo social media site, people’s views are mixed.
One commentator,Yaoyao, said: “I support the moves to end commercial activities. In those military-owned hospitals, the doctors have such awful attitudes and now they are facing some real change.”
Another, writing under the name Fingertips, said: “What? I didn’t know the military had business interests. So we pay them with our taxes and we still have to pay for their services?” Others, such as Zhang, asked: “So what about military hospitals now? Will they still charge or will they be opened to the public?”
It’s not just property. As part of efforts to shed 300,000 troops, the PLA is firing many non-combat soldiers, and this has played hell with entertainment troupes and film companies long part of the apparatus.
Last year, Xi inaugurated two new PLA branches, the Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force (SSF), and he made a highly public visit to the SSF this week. Its activities are secret, but the army newspaper said the unit is focused on big data applications, cloud computing, 3D printing and nanotechnology.
Reform is seen as a good thing, as there has been a feeling corruption in the military was widespread, and several victims in the anti-corruption campaign have been senior military cadres.
Taken away
Last week, Gen Wang Jianping (62), deputy chief of the joint staff, was taken away in Sichuan, while a few weeks before that, Tian Xiusi, ex-political commissar of the PLA Air Force, was also taken away by anti-graft investigators.
Others to fall foul of the anti-corruption investigation include two former vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Guo Boxiong and Xu Caihou, allies of disgraced former top security cadre Zhou Yongkang.
“National defence and military development are in the national interest, citizens need to be understanding and supportive,” said Gong Fangbin, a professor at the PLA’s National Defence University.
On the PLA’s 89th anniversary on August 1st, the message was clear: “A strong China needs a strong armed forces.”
Property management doesn’t fit with that call to arms. Outside the Sell Drunk Supermarket, a shopkeeper loads stock on to a flatbed tricycle.
“We’re not sure where we are going yet. We’ll tell you where when we know,” he said.
