Explaining Chinese Army Ranks

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[williamchiang]

Technically the law in China requires all citizens to serve, but in practise PLA only takes in volunteers due to the huge number of applicants. So the volunteer during his/her first two years of service is called a conscript （“义务兵"）, but they are not really conscripted but volunteered.

[Amshraw]

That was very interesting when you snapshot the pla soldier and broke down the insignia. A video with just some of that would be great

[kutter_ttl]

The video mentions conscripts but I recall reading that even though on paper the PLA does use conscription, in reality they haven't needed to due to being able to have sufficient numbers of volunteers. The mechanism is there to recruit males aged 18-22 years for a compulsory 24-months of service but the PLA has been made up volunteers since 1949. Considering their population it seems plausible since with a military of 2 million that works out to about 0.14% of the population (contrast that with the US where it's 0.5%).

[Norsemano]

Although the junior soldiers were "legally considered" as conscripts, none of them is actually conscripted into the military. They volunteered

[obsidianstatue]

The job over rank system actually doesn't really affect the perks of technical roles, the word is that senior NCOs actually gets the same treatment and perks that comes with the divisional leaders.
The job over rank system is a left over from history
In ancient China, what could consider to be military ranks were always ceremonial titles, You have ranks like "Grand General of Swift Cavalry" Which would be considered rank one in the civil service ranking, which is the highest official rank
Today's equivalent in China would be the rank of General with the Job post of Deputy CMC member, which comes with the civil service rank of 2, equating to "Deputy National Leader"

There are other General ranks like General who assist the Nation, General who protect the Nation, Generals who Quells the Army etc. these ranks only comes with salary increase, but not necessarily the actual right to command troops

China being the first country to institute as law that the civilians have control over the military during Song dynasty, always meant, that your rank didn't matter that much in Palace intrigues. During Ming dynasty, you even had Jinyiwei, the Secret police answerable directly to the Emperor serving as Army Political Commissars, ensuring the generals don't rebel and the Army's loyalty to the Emperor

[SpaceMonkeyBoi]

**lives in Taiwan**
Step 1: wake up
Step 2: brush your teeth and get a shower
Step 3: get dressed for the day
Step 4: go on your way to work
Step 5: look up and enjoy the beautiful sky
Step 6: there are Chinese jets in the sky 😀
Step 7: there are Chinese jets in the sky 😦

[Malinovyyy]

Note that the officer at 8:22 is not a PLAGF officer, but rather a People's Armed Police (PAP) officer.

[DY-fyjh]

This channel deserves much more views. I'm recommending it to all of my friends.

[senorsexy]

I really like this channel, It's super professional in addressing the different topics. Great Job.

[sagethompson]

Love your content, would be amazing to see German army ranks post reunification to now. Keep it up 👍👍

[seahbryan]

Very interesting video! Would love to see you do a video on the rank structures in the Singapore military :D

[pantherax]

Conscription in China is basically the selective service system for you Americans. People register but no one is practically ever called up as volunteers are plentiful.

[riopramuditya]

I really appreciate this type of video man, because for me I rarely seen an Asia’s military rank organizations video, from a western rank organization perspective such as this. For the next one I would like to suggest for you to create a video about the Indonesian national military rank structure and organization. Because unlike most other military, the Indonesian national military allows volunteer to enlist directly as a Non-Commission officer (Bintara as it called in Indonesian), rather that advancing through the enlisted ranks (Tamtana as it called in Indonesia), which I find fascinating. And furthermore, the enlisted rank structure in itself is quite difficult to move up to, especially if a soldier is aiming to be an officer, they have to advance to the enlisted rank structure first and also the NCO’s rank structure, which in itself has a higher degree of competition due to many new civilian volunteers that enter directly into the NCO’s rank structure. Hope you look up about this 🙏

[michaelallison]

Great video, very informative to military nerds like me.!!

[ashifabedin]

That's the content i like the most. Good work!

[yandelsantiago]

I like the blood type name and QR code makes things easier to find out what type of blood they need and there ID

[SamBao]

5:36 the enlisted soldier has "Battalion sergeant major" written on his chest board
which is weird:
enlisted PLA members don't wear chest boards, they are reserved for officers on dress uniforms
chest boards are for names only, like on commonwealth troops
chest boards are not supposed to be worn with working uniforms

[MchUpNy]

Another informative video about the PLA! How about a video about the PLA Airborne Corps in the future?

[Raphaelmasbro]

Would love more squad organization video
( not too depth but many video - like the web )

[joezhangmd]

Super fascinating! Do they release information on how many of each rank is in the system or how many of what jobs exist like the us MOS or AFSC?