We talking about the Chinese PLA or the Syrian-palestinian PLA?
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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hell yeah i dont have reason to live anyway
No. KPA I would consider. But then again folks at KPA would've probably told me to fuck off and do everything in my power to bring the revolution in my own country closer.
Obviously they would never do that, and for very good reasons. But let's assume hypothetically that we lived in an alternate universe where they would.
I would personally love be part of something that i can really say is changing the world for the better, even in peacetime with disaster relief work.
But i'm 99% sure it would be impossible to convince my wife to move to China. Also i'd be worried about dragging down the quality of the PLA. Sometimes armies don't necessarily benefit from just having more people if those people are incompetent and out of shape. Now, i don't know about incompetent because i might have one or two skills that could be useful, but given that i'm heading towards 40 now i'm definitely not in the kind of physical shape that you'd want from a new recruit. Though i suppose that depends what kind of role they assign you to.
So i don't know. Interesting hypothetical to think about. But it's an extremely unrealistic fantasy that could never happen, so the question is kind of moot.
A better question is: would you join a People's Liberation Army in your own country?
Easy yes
That's a good question. I'm not sure. It would require working with people who want me dead. I wonder if homosexual Cubans had this dilemma as they assisted those who would persecute them after revolution.
It all comes down to what you view as being the primary contradiction that you are facing. To fight the Japanese imperialists, the Chinese communists allied with the Nationalists who had just massacred communists en masse all across China and forced the remnants to embark on the Long March. After the war against the Japanese occupation was over, the struggle against the Nationalists resumed.
Ideally we would like the struggle against the reactionary elements in our own anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements to not have to end up in an actual war, but be resolved through an internal political and ideological struggle after the revolution.
Maybe as a support role but as of right now, tech is so highly advanced and automated that they have no use for more people.
tbh, if the PRC needed international brigades so much would have had to go catastrophically wrong that i assume i would be already dead in a nuclear fireball
I don’t get this Russia allows internationals to join their army since 2010 like how bad would the situation need to get
russia and the PRC aren't all that comparable, one is a capitalist state run by neoliberals, the other is a socialist state run by communists
the PLA is very large and as the PRC hasn't been involved in large-scale conflict for years has not been using up a bunch of personnel, ammunition, and equipment
if the PLA needed to bolster it's numbers with foreigners then it would be in direct hot conflict with the us, which is a rabid dog of a country that is one of very few nuclear armed states that has a first strike policy
No, for a few reasons.
The first is that military life just isn't for me. I figured this out back when I was still a patriotic lib and wanted to join the US military and ultimately didn't because I realized that just wasn't a lifestyle I could acclimatize to. The thought of potentially having to kill people while people try to kill me also didn't help.
Second is I'd probably have to learn Mandarin and I've heard it's very difficult for English speakers to pick up on which, y'know, makes sense. I struggled enough trying to learn Russian a few years ago. Learning a whole new language just requires so much more effort that I'm just not prepared to sink time & energy into. Especially if I have to undergo military service on top of that.
Third is as much as I love China it's unfortunately not very progressive on the queer rights front. There is a generally conservative attitude toward women and queers in China that is very disappointing. It's admittedly getting much better and I'm sure it will eventually outpace the West at some point but right now there are many places in the West that are still far ahead of China on these issues even if a lot of the West is regressing or in some cases never progressed at all. I just don't want to jump from the frying pan into the fire seeing as the biggest reason I'd want to leave the US is to escape the conservative hate cult.
Strict routine and exercise while doing a job aligned with my morals and relative stability? Sounds like a golden opportunity. Most military work is not fighting in the front lines, and civilians also die a lot during wars, so I think the risks here are severely overrated. Worst part would be learning a new language.
If I had a more stable life, maybe
I think I make a better contribution (better use of my skills) to the People's Republic in my current job. The world would have to be in a dire situation if they needed me, and in that situation I couldn't morally refuse.
I’m too weak to join a military.
Bit too old now but if there was actually an actionable threat to them yeah I think I might. Oh also hello to whatever fed may be reading this
Realistically what are they going to do
Downvote them
Apparently there's no explicit exclusion to trans people in the PLA but it's not really a thing with codified inclusions or rights, so most trans Chinese soldiers transition after serving or are closeted through out.
Volunteer when I am ready
Hell nah dude I don't want to be a soldier
Actually if they told me it would automatically get me Chinese citizenship I'd consider it