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China Personnel
Defense modernization brought changes to military personnel
policies and practices. Personnel reforms emphasized upgrading the
quality of recruits, improving conditions of service, altering
promotion practices to stress professional competence over
seniority or political loyalty, and providing new uniforms and
insignia. The 1984 Military Service Law codified some of the
changes in personnel policies and set the stage for further
changes, such as the restoration of ranks.
Recruitment
The Military Service Law provided the legal basis for
conscription, and it combined compulsory and voluntary service. All
citizens between eighteen and twenty-two, regardless of sex,
nationality, profession, family background, religion, or level of
education, were obliged to perform military service. Almost 10
million men reached conscription age each year, but the PLA chose
less than 10 percent of those eligible. A very small number of
women were inducted annually. In the 1980s the PLA attempted to
upgrade the quality of its inductees by changing recruiting
practices. The PLA previously drew its recruits from rural youth of
politically acceptable families. But the Military Service Law, the
introduction of rural reforms offering greater economic
opportunities for rural youth, and the PLA's requirements for
higher educational levels caused recruitment to draw more recruits
from better educated urban youth. Officers were drawn from military
academy graduates; enlisted men and women who completed officer
training in officially designated institutions and passed officer
fitness tests; graduates of universities and special technical
secondary schools; and civilian cadres and technical personnel
recruited by nonmilitary units in the PLA. As a result of the new
conscription and officer recruitment practices, the level of
education in the PLA was much higher than that of the general
population.
In 1987 approximately 100,000 women served in the PLA and
represented one-tenth of the officer corps and one-quarter of the
specialized technicians. Women served primarily in scientific
research, communications, medical, and cultural units. Members of
China's ethnic minorities also served in the PLA, but their
percentage within the military was probably considerably lower than
their proportion in the general population, partly because of their
lower level of education and partly because government and party
suspicion of their loyalties.
Data as of July 1987
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