One-Child Soldiers
March 15th, 2010
The offspring of China’s one-child policy are often noisome, rude, self-interested bundles of consumption: both material and emotional. Whilst a boon for retailers, Drew Thompson writes in the March/April issue of Foreign Policy magazine that they make for lousy soldiers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The one-child soliers composing nearly half the 2.3 million Chinese troops in the PLA in 2006. In 1998 China reduced the amount of time the soldiers need to serve, to two years; so the young men in particular can aid their families make a living in the countryside. The army has become aware that many of its conscripts are a primary if not sole source of support for their parents. Though the one-child soldiers may have better computer skills and even communicate more effectively than comrades with siblings, “Only-child recruits are not as tough; they don’t like to go through the pain of intense training; they call in sick more frequently; and they struggle to perform some simple chores like doing their own laundry,” Thompson writes. Perhaps all they need is a little love.
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