>shunting surplus energy into the forces The thesis of article is retarded because the opposite is happening considering PLA modernization under Xi dramaticall

>shunting surplus energy into the forces The thesis of article is retarded because the opposite is happening considering PLA modernization under Xi dramatically reduced military personel (~10%) to trade quantity for quality needed to man modern platforms. Is there going to be more surplus technical talent flowing into PLA due to youth unemployment? Yes, which is good considering one of the primary impediments to PLA modernization since 2010s has been LACK of technical talent. Finally redirecting relevant tertiary overproduction that would prefer to go to civilian industry to PLA is good side effect. But we're talking about growing active personel from current 2M to 2.3-2.5M of 00s-10s under most aggressive expansion, not 3-4M of 80s-90s. Even absorbing 2M youth barely dents at the youth unemployment problem, absorbing a few 100k is rounding error. Meanwhile defense as % of GDP Is still ~2%, security states where defense drives substantial portion of economy is 10%+. As you said the only human capita redirection that makes sense is DURING WAR, but it would mostly be drafting a few million youths who don't want to work in factories to finally crank out 100,000s of drones, missiles etc, while a few 100,000s drone operators and technicians bomb remote targets in their mainland bases. The primary media diet are going to be missile/gun cams of autonomous weapons blowing up TW wedding parties or Japanese LNG terminals interspliced with footage of PLA youths in their air conditioned drone booths. Ultimately, there simply isn't enough platforms to man/crew during modern war to meaningfully attrite PRC youth/population.