Taiwan Conflict Research Page

The article is worth reading, the summary is that the PLA depends on 2-year conscripts for about 40% of its force, and most of its infantry. While China still has a large population and can be picky about who it drafts, the army creates friction between the military’s expanding need for manpower and the economy’s need for young people to enter the job market.

In particular there’s a lot of pressure to create a professional NCO corps, a real necessity in a high-technology force like the PLA wants to be. The Chinese are attempting to push in college graduates into the military and including into these NCO slots, and have been even reforming their draft intakes from once to twice per year to accommodate this as recent college graduates in the spring now have an intake cycle right out of school, instead of the traditional Fall intake.

The PLA is also setting up “pre-boot camp” military experience for young people to try out army things and allow recruiters to do some early scouting and weeding out. If all of these changes are done correctly it might improve the PLA’s overall personnel quality.