Introduction to translation

At a time when China's military power is growing, driven by rapid development in the field of technology, the Chinese army is facing a dilemma of a special kind, which is not related to the efficiency and development of systems and weapons as much as it is related to the level and skills of its soldiers and officers, as the army struggles to recruit and retain qualified personnel and attract talents, in light of Great competition with technology companies.

In their Defense One article, Taylor Lee and Peter Singer discuss this dilemma and its impact on Beijing's military ambitions.

Translation text

Most of the Western arguments and discussions about China's growing military power focus on equipment and weapons, while hardly paying attention to the military personnel themselves.

The annual Chinese Military Strength Report issued by the US Department of Defense discussed very important details regarding the new equipment of the Chinese Liberation Army (PLA), but it did not mention almost any details about the crews of soldiers and officers of this army.

But the problems of recruiting, training, and retaining personnel may be the same ones holding China back in the midst of its "marathon" of power with the United States.

President Xi Jinping called for a greater sense of urgency about the modernization of army personnel, which he discussed at length during the 19th and 20th congresses of the ruling party.

(Reuters)

The Chinese army has always strived to make men of high caliber in training and education, as most of them were illiterate in the early years of the army's founding, including the officers.

(This was reflected in the senior leaders themselves in the Chinese Communist Party, including when Chen Yongwei rose to the position of deputy prime minister despite his inability to read.)

By the first decade of the new millennium, the majority of Chinese army recruits had only a ninth-grade certificate of basic education, while a third of army officers lacked even the most basic of higher education.

The fact that the Chinese army strategy makers realize that these problems represent a decisive obstacle to building and constructing an army with international specifications.

As a Chinese army academic wrote in 2016: “We have developed and deployed many of the latest advanced weapons, including weapons rated as the best in the world, but there are not enough soldiers to use these advanced weapons; in some cases, the soldiers lack experience and knowledge.” to use their weapons properly.

Even China's supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, has demanded a greater sense of urgency about the modernization of military personnel, something he discussed at length during the 19th and 20th congresses of the ruling party.

Zhang Youxia, China's chief of staff and vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, endorsed this, saying that human talent is very important to the Chinese military "today more than at any other time in history".

Large armies alone are not enough

The message of the leaders, then, quickly spread across the joints of the Chinese army and its institutions.

A few weeks after the party's twentieth general congress, the official newspaper of the Chinese army (PLA Daily) published an article stating that China is following the West's lead in attracting talent, especially in the way it pushes development in automation and other high-tech fields.

This reveals to us the extent to which the Chinese army is moving to take care of individuals as a result of the same technological breakthroughs that have caught the attention of the West.

Education until the ninth grade was appropriate when the Chinese army's doctrine focused on mobilizing infantry soldiers, but the technological needs of modern warfields require soldiers and officers with "scientific knowledge and technological skill," according to President Xi.

Anecdotally reports indicate that the Chinese army wants new recruits to have at least a higher education, so that they make up a minimum of 70-75%.

(Reuters)

Accordingly, the Chinese army is making every effort to recruit personnel with better skills and education, especially in technological fields.

For example, starting in 2016, the Central Military Commission announced that academic military institutions will accept a larger number of students, with an increase of 16%, in high-tech sectors with essential needs, such as space intelligence, surveillance technology (radar), and drones.

Indeed, there was a 14% increase in enrollment in aviation, missile and marine corps fields, and a 24% decrease in enrollment in traditional fields such as infantry, artillery and logistics.

Meanwhile, recruitment trends in the Chinese army reflect a desire to attract university students, especially those with scientific and engineering backgrounds, and graduates of technological colleges and technical institutes.

Anecdotal reports indicate that the Chinese army wants new recruits to have at least a higher education, so that they constitute no less than 70-75%.

Recent years have witnessed an increase in the targets set by the Chinese army for the percentage of educated students and graduates out of the total number of recruits.

The Chinese military has also experimented with new ways to recruit people with these skills, such as directly looking for civilians who already have these experiences.

For example, the Chongqing City Recruitment Center reported in 2016 that it would recruit 194 new non-commissioned officers, including those with high-tech specializations, such as computer, automation, communication networks, electronic information, medical technology, energy, mechanical and electrical equipment, and mechanical design and manufacturing. .

The Chinese military is also placing great emphasis on the direct recruitment of graduates of civilian colleges as officers, especially those with a focus on science and technology.

Therefore, the Central Military Commission announced last March that the Chinese army and the Chinese People's Police would recruit more than 3,600 new graduates from universities (including holders of higher degrees) as officers, with a focus on those with scientific and technological specializations.

It is, of course, complicated to assess whether these initiatives on the part of the Chinese military will bear fruit for it.

A census conducted by China every ten years found that in 2020 nearly 57% of Chinese military personnel had received a post-secondary education degree, up nearly 47% from 2000. Likewise, the percentage of those with a ninth-grade education below The rate is 4%, which in turn indicates that the Chinese army has already achieved clear success in recruiting more educated individuals, even if it has not yet achieved the desired percentage.

The Chinese economy competes with its army

A 2021 survey in one of the units showed that only 35% of well-educated soldiers wanted to continue serving in the Chinese army after two years (Reuters)

But success in attracting better human talent does not necessarily mean success in retaining them, as there is evidence that the Chinese army is struggling to retain highly skilled officers and personnel.

There is always a recurring debate about those with university education and how they struggle to integrate into military life within the Chinese army, and about their annoyance and resentment at being treated as their less educated counterparts are treated.

A program to educate Chinese military officers at civilian universities was canceled in 2016 (a program somewhat similar to the US ROTC), after failing to integrate civilian officers who were seen as inferior within the Chinese military hierarchy.

Of course, these militaristic cultural tendencies do not change overnight.

Top-educated recruits constantly complain that the Chinese military lacks a system that puts them in the right units to make best use of their skills.

For example, more than thirty university-educated people were assigned to the Radar Brigade in the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang (probably the 14th Radar Brigade of the Air Force under the Western Operational Theater Command, one of the five theaters of operations of the Chinese army), and then None of them chose to re-enlist after the mandatory two years of military service due to the harsh conditions they lived in the desert, as well as their general dissatisfaction with military life.

An army brigade investigation found that more than 80 percent of soldiers with a university education did not want to return to military service in recent years.

China's military faces disconcerting competition with the same technological economy that is driving China's emergence as a global power.

(Reuters)

More broadly, a 2021 survey of a unit found that only 35% of well-educated soldiers wanted to continue serving in the Chinese army after two years, while the percentage of college graduates who wanted to stay was even lower.

The Chinese army has begun to try to mitigate this crisis by allowing previously discharged personnel to re-enlist, and allowing non-commissioned officers to remain in service - if they wish - even after they have passed the maximum permissible age.

Thus, the Chinese military faces a disconcerting competition with the very technological economy that is driving China's emergence as a global power.

Then there is the competition coming from the private sector, particularly from the areas of advanced technology and fields of skills applicable in the civilian field, which are factors that contribute to weakening the ability to retain cadres in the army.

In general, the challenge related to the soldiers of the Chinese army is likely to remain an obstacle in the way of China's military supremacy efforts in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in the coming years.

This issue also reveals the extent to which it can be more useful to think about analyzing the rise of the Chinese army by looking at the individuals behind the new Chinese military equipment, and not just the latest equipment that the Chinese army possesses.

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Translated by: Karim Mohamed

This report is translated from Defense One and does not necessarily reflect the location of Meydan.