China’s ruling Communist Party, focused on ensuring stability and concerned about mass protests by military veterans, has announced plans for an administrative body similar to the US’ Department of Veteran Affairs to take better care of the country’s 57 million veterans.

Richard Bitzinger, a military expert at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said veterans’ affairs had long been a knotty issue globally, even in the US, but the PLA faced a key problem – veterans’ housing – that was not something the US government had to deal with.