Legal Daily:

What changes has the Veterans Support Law brought about more than one year after its implementation? What policies and regulations will be rolled out next to facilitate its enforcement? 

Ma Feixiong:

Thank you for your questions. As I said a moment ago, the Veterans Support Law is China's first special law regarding veterans, so we can all imagine its significance. 

Regarding your question, I would say that it is no easy job to pass a law, and it is even more important to implement it well. The Veterans Support Law has brought about many changes more than one year after its enforcement. First, the atmosphere for studying and respecting the law has become stronger. By compiling tutorials, organizing thematic training, and making short videos, we have promoted the law extensively and continually, focusing on its background, great significance, core content, and practical requirements. Now, the capability of the people in our system to administer according to law has improved markedly, and the legal awareness of veterans has also constantly increased. Second, supporting policies and regulations have been gradually improved. Progress has been made in the formulation and revision of the regulation on the resettlement of veterans, the regulation on the compensation and preferential treatment of military personnel, and the regulation on tributes to families of martyrs. We have also adopted measures on serving and managing retired military officials who now receive benefits from the government, measures on compensating disabled veterans, measures on managing special care hospitals, measures on managing glory hospitals, and measures on protecting and managing memorial facilities for martyrs. Third, solid progress has been made in implementing the law and relevant policies. We have launched an initiative called the "Year of Law and Policy Implementation." Under the initiative, we have worked to see that veterans benefit from relevant policies by promoting coordination at the ministerial, provincial, city, and county levels, urging implementation, breaking down tasks in a detailed manner, promoting the fulfillment of responsibilities at different levels, and tackling the bottlenecks and pains in policy implementation. Fourth, the level of service has kept rising. Among the measures already taken, pensions are given out monthly; the mechanism for fair and transparent resettlement of retired military personnel has been improved, and direct settlement has been introduced; multiple measures have been adopted to help veterans get employment or start a business; subsidies for entitled groups have been increased for many years in a row; the mechanisms for helping those in difficulty and providing legal aid and judicial assistance have been improved to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of veterans according to law. 

Going forward, we will continue to study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and the important expositions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on veteran affairs. We will focus on issues that the CPC Central Committee is concerned about, veterans care much about, and those that need urgent attention. We will build a tightly woven system of laws, regulations, and policies, and move faster and with greater force to abolish outdated ones, fix deficiencies, fill gaps and implement existing laws. Specifically, we will focus on three areas of effort. First, we will step up to formulate the regulation on the resettlement of veterans, revise the regulation on the compensation and preferential treatment of military personnel and the regulation on tributes to families of martyrs, and conduct research on the formulation of regulation on the employment and entrepreneurship of veterans. Second, we will improve rules and regulations on various aspects of veteran support, including ones to strengthen their political awareness, facilitate their transfer and resettlement, support their employment and entrepreneurship, ensure their compensation and preferential treatment, and offer tributes to the families of martyrs. Third, we will instruct local veteran services to roll out rules and regulations that suit local conditions. With these efforts, we aim to build a policy system featuring unimpeded communication at all levels, coordination between different departments, policy consistency, and comprehensive support. Thank you.

Chen Wenjun:

Thank you to all speakers and friends from the media. That's all for today's press conference. Goodbye. 

Translated and edited by Wang Qian, Xu Xiaoxuan, Guo Yiming, Liu Qiang, Yang Xi, Zhou Jing, Huang Shan, Zhang Rui, Ma Yujia, Yan Bin, Xu Kailin, Li Huiru, Liu Sitong, Qin Qi, Wang Wei, Yuan Fang, David Ball, Jay Birbeck, and Tom Arnstein. In case of any discrepancy between the English and Chinese texts, the Chinese version is deemed to prevail.