On this episode of China Uncensored,
what to do with too many college graduates.
Hi, welcome to China Uncensored.
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
Being young in China isn't all sunshine and bubble tea.
For example,
this year almost 8 million young people will graduate university
and enter the job market.
And there’s not enough jobs for them.
If you thought the US job market was tough,
China is a place where 10,000 people applied
to be a receptionist.
Economic opportunities?
Hold please!
The housing situation is not a rosy picture either.
In fact, a lot of them live together in crowded underground compounds
called ant colonies.
A large number of restless,
unemployed young people can be a recipe for disaster.
Especially when they’re mostly men—
because of that whole sex-selective abortion thing
that resulted from decades of the Communist Party's One-Child policy.
Fortunately, the Party has a solution.
They've just issued guidelines calling for more college graduates
to work in poor rural communities.
That actually sounds like a good idea:
Programs that would employ young people
while also using their skills to help the country.
Let's see what the guidelines say.
Ok...here we go.
General requirements.
Guiding ideology?
“Fully implement the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the CPC
and the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee,
the Fourth Plenary Session,
the Fifth Session of the CPC Central Committee,
the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee
and the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee,
thoroughly implement the new series of important speeches
of Xi Jinping...
something something...
four comprehensives...
something something...
core socialist values…”
Is this how they write everything?
Let's just skip ahead.
Ok, here's something.
Encouraging college students to join the PLA.
They’re calling on “excellent college graduates
to make contributions from the army barracks.”
Hopefully more excellent than 3,500 students in Peking University's 2011 class,
who made 6,000 trips to the doctor during their mandatory
two-week military training.
Guess they just weren't ready for those long marches.
But you see, there’s been a rise in military dropouts.
According to China’s Military Service Law,
anyone between the ages of 18 and 22
must serve two years in the People’s Liberation Army.
They won’t take just anyone though.
You have to be healthy,
and you have to hold the right political views.
For example,
for an officer,
30 to 40% of his career is spent not on training,
but on political work.
That is, “studying CCP propaganda,
singing patriotic songs,
and conducting small group discussions
on Marxist-Leninist theory.”
You can see why the Party
would want to encourage young people to volunteer.
What many young Chinese are doing
is opting to postpone the draft
until after they graduate from college.
By which point they’re past the age requirement
and can just skip it entirely.
Don’t worry,
even if they do,
they still won’t have missed out on that patriotic education.
Across China,
first year high school students and college freshman
are required to go through military training.
Mostly it involves marching drills and singing patriotic songs -
something every teenager loves.
Military training for students began in 1955.
But then in 1989, this happened.
Waves of restless,
educated young people thought the Communist Party
wanted to hear what they had to say.
That didn’t go so well.
Universities were now seen as a problem for the Party—
hotbeds of counter-revolutionary protest.
That’s when a comprehensive patriotic education campaign
was started.
By 2001,
military training had become mandatory for all high school
and college freshmen.
And it seems to have worked.
I mean, democracy was, like, so 80s.
But that doesn't necessarily translate
into people wanting to join the military.
For years,
the Chinese military was a career option for people
who couldn't afford or get into college.
But Chinese leader Xi Jinping
is actually trying to make the military leaner—
by laying off hundreds of thousands of soldiers
and putting an emphasis on technology.
So why is the PLA
trying to recruit more excellent students?
Well, having more educated officers for one.
And as a bonus,
it’s a way to keep potentially restless young people occupied
instead of festering as marginalized out of work layabouts
in ant colonies.
Yeah, those Chinese youth are too entitled and individualistic.
I mean, they may be hardworking,
but they're getting too selfish.
Do they even think about core socialist values anymore?
Wait a minute...
that sounds familiar!
Chinese millennials sound just like us American millennials.
Well, not the core socialist values part.
But we have more in common than you might think.
Maybe this is good.
Maybe we can all put a little less emphasis
on preparing to fight each other,
and go get some bubble tea instead.
So what do you think about China’s excellent students?
Leave your comments below.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell.
See you next time.