Chinese Militia and its state of readiness

Originally Posted by rhino123

I think the militia is a forgotten group of people in the Chinese military, they have limited training and is actually not very skillful but they did and will play an important part of the Chinese defence.

There are around 10 million strong militia in China, that is quite a massive amount of manpower, however I am wondering what is the state of readiness for these militia?

In time of war, how long will it take to arm these men and march them into the hot zone? And is it possible to arm all of them? As mentioned, they have 10 million men, and it would not be easy to equip every single one of them with weapon. I am wondering how is China going to support this troops?

Any thoughts guys?

IMO, China would rather not use these militia at all. At the moment, it's for show, just like in the parade. If they have to resort to militia, that means their normal defence is complete gone and China would have been occupied already. Then I would imagine they would go back to the old style, which means guerrilla warfare. And militia would become the backbone for this new type of fighting since they at least have SOME training and know how to shoot a gun. Even these men are not armed at the beginning, they can find weapons from the enemy, like in the WWII.

The Militia is only a show piece !, the real Militia is each and every child, woman and man that is not in the PLA or PAP !

Every child since the age of 4 has been indoctrinated to defend the Motherland since 1949, the words are in the National Anthem and every song they sing in school ! Patriotism and Nationalism is part of their DNA !
Why Chinese Patriotism is to be Respected and Feared | The China Teaching Web

Originally Posted by EdT586

The Militia is only a show piece !, the real Militia is each and every child, woman and man that is not in the PLA or PAP !

Every child since the age of 4 has been indoctrinated to defend the Motherland since 1949, the words are in the National Anthem and every song they sing in school ! Patriotism and Nationalism is part of their DNA !
Why Chinese Patriotism is to be Respected and Feared | The China Teaching Web

interesting article there, my grandfather was attacked ruthlessly by the red guard during the cultural revolution, as are the grandparents of many of my peers in China, yet few seem to hold a grudge against Chairman Mao. he is prolly still the second most popular leader in China

Just a slight bit of exaggeration, no? There are plenty of after 80 and after 90 kids who care for nothing but hedonism.

Lets get back to the topic. We do not want this thread to stray from what I originally intented.

Now let us look into the training that the militia have and let us take the 10 million figure as something real and not show piece as was pointed out by some of the members here. And frankly the patriotism, 4 year old kids kind of thing is not what I am asking or what I have in mind for this discussion.

Lets get back again to the readiness of the militia, I shall start again with more question:

1) Type of training they receive,
2) Frequency of that training,
3) Type of equipment they are armed,

that article is kinda BS to me. If it werent for the fact that Im Chinese and also currently living in China, I'd end up thinking of China and its people as some monolithic entity with little room for individuality.

"However, I have been able to break through that ‘wall’..."

The only wall the author has fooled himself into believing he has broken is the one that separates himself as a self-righteous foreigner with limited Chinese language and cultural understanding/immersion and the vast majority of China which does not think of their country using the Orientalist hyperbole that the author litters across this article - "worship", "unwavering allegiance", "almost tangible" (wtf does this mean?).

When I speak to Chinese people about China much of it is moaning and piss-taking. When this wannabe Orientalist speaks to Chinese people about China every word confirms his reductive and ignorant ideas about China that already existed in his mind and in the institution to which he belongs.

Originally Posted by august1

that article is kinda BS to me. If it werent for the fact that Im Chinese and also currently living in China, I'd end up thinking of China and its people as some monolithic entity with little room for individuality.

"However, I have been able to break through that ‘wall’..."

The only wall the author has fooled himself into believing he has broken is the one that separates himself as a self-righteous foreigner with limited Chinese language and cultural understanding/immersion and the vast majority of China which does not think of their country using the Orientalist hyperbole that the author litters across this article - "worship", "unwavering allegiance", "almost tangible" (wtf does this mean?).

When I speak to Chinese people about China much of it is moaning and piss-taking. When this wannabe Orientalist speaks to Chinese people about China every word confirms his reductive and ignorant ideas about China that already existed in his mind and in the institution to which he belongs.

My friend.... can we please get back to the thread? and not dwell any further into that article that some person posted on the thread before this thing turns ugly and the mod decided to close this perfectly good discussion.

The discussion here is on the state of readiness for the militia and not some moronic discussion on national pride and DNA and some four years old kid. When there is a war, the planner need to know the state of readiness for all of his or her troops and not some 'ideal' that all men and women in China is the militia. That do not happen even in WWII, although Mao always says its the people's war, but in actual fact, and I mean, real fact, strategists and planners need to know exactly what are the numbers, the state of readiness the equipment, and things like that to plan and execute their tactics in order to defeat the country's enemy.

So please.... people, let us forget that 'article' and get back to the discussion here. Thanks a million.

Good Call Rhino

I can only hazard a guess about the role of the Militia, but in the modern age, I would assume that they would be used in largely rear and non combat roles to release front line units for combat duty. They could also help/augment PAP and ordinary Police.

Remember that a more sophisticated military machine needs ever more backroom boys to keep it moving and this seems the ideal militia role. They are however basically trained and can be mobilised relatively quickly.
So any or all of the following as examples:

Logistics, both supply and transport.
Performing Garrison duties in rear positions
Manning Check Points
General Observation
Extra Air Defence
Clerical Duties
Medical Orderlies
Assistants to Senior Officers

I am sure others can think of many other similar duties.

Well only things I've heard about the militia is they have done very few joint training missions with the PLA regulars. Most of the units are rear area support, air defence primarily AA guns and last resort infantry after the PAP. More or less their a reserve force to deffend against attacks and invasion of the homeland

Here's a presentation that mentions some of what the militia does and their status.

YouTube - Chinese Military Expert Dennis J. Blasko Speaks at Whittier College (Part I)

YouTube - Chinese Military Expert Dennis J. Blasko Speaks at Whittier College (Part II)

Hope it helps.

officially, militia soldiers train for minimium15 days a year, with NCOs train for 30 days a year. Equipment varies from unit to unit, but all of them seems to hand-me-downs from the PLA. If you can read Chinese, there is in fact a militia magazine you can look at.

It looks like local governments (county, city etc.), look after the militia instead of military commands. As most offical info after militia are from local gov websites instead of PLA/DoD websites. Here is report after a training exercise in Shanghai. Apparently, they spent 8 days shooting at air targets with AAA and listen to lectures after "modern warfare". Anther one from Qingdao, which is history page about militia activities there. That county has 15,000 militia, and they most play with 40mm rocket artillery, 82mm mortar, 12.7mm AAA and 60mm mortar. So pretty basic infantry stuff.

Another few things that I could think of as tasks for the militia during war time:

1) Basic repairs and conditioning of vehicles, weapons, etc
2) Transportation of ammunition, equipments, medicine, food, etc by ground to frontline units.
3) Repairs and building of the country's extensive infrastructure to support extensive ground campaigns
4) Cook for frontline unit.
5) Recreational units

That is only a few of the things I can think of, anyway will the militia be doing any of those?

Oh, btw, now that we know Chinese militia spend 15 to 30 days a year to train (thanks to luhai), I am wondering do they get call back for training during those days or do they voluntarily clock in for their training?

In singapore after our NSF (national service), we get call back every years for around 14days to train as NSmen (national service men). Do China had this system too? Or as volunteer it is just up to the militia to do the clocking in themselves without any compulsory time slot.

It is always a headache to schedule the NSmen due to the large size when I was serving in my country's army, I can only imagine what it would be like for scheduling manpower the size of China's local militia, plus the country is huge and you couldn't stop someone from travelling to the other states of the country (most probably to work).

prolly depends on where you live, i am pretty damn sure militias in Xinjiang gets way more training than militias in Shanghai. in the end i still trust the reserves more since those are the ones that actually received professional training.

Originally Posted by luhai

It looks like local governments (county, city etc.), look after the militia instead of military commands. As most offical info after militia are from local gov websites instead of PLA/DoD websites. Here is report after a training exercise in Shanghai. Apparently, they spent 8 days shooting at air targets with AAA and listen to lectures after "modern warfare". Anther one from Qingdao, which is history page about militia activities there. That county has 15,000 militia, and they most play with 40mm rocket artillery, 82mm mortar, 12.7mm AAA and 60mm mortar. So pretty basic infantry stuff.

Does this mean the local govn'ts actually haves possession of those weapon systems? That's a pretty well-armed local administration... or they are simply leasing the weapons from PLA?