"We're just waiting for the order to kill! Kill! Kill!"
So go the lyrics of the Chinese People's Liberation Army's latest music video, which hopes to convince the country's youth to join the military. The video, titled "Battle Declaration," was released on the PLA's official website last Thursday.
"There will always be missions in your mind, enemies in your eyes, responsibilities on your shoulders and passion in your breast," says a voiceover at the beginning of the video, in an apparent attempt to rally viewers' patriotism.
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The professional-looking video features shots of young recruits training for battle. Dizzying montages show men crawling under barbed wire, scaling tire climbing walls and practicing their beach landings, among many other exercises.
While military service is technically mandatory in China, some young people have been actively avoiding it, said Colonial Wu Qian, the Chinese defense ministry's spokesperson. The Chinese Constitution states that it is a citizen's "sacred duty" to defend the country from aggression, and an "honorable duty" to join the military.
Watch the video above.
In what seems like an effort to drum up more viewer enthusiasm, the video also shows off China’s advanced military weaponry, including the Liaoning aircraft carrier and Shenyang J-11 fighter jets.
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Satellite images indicate that J-11s were recently deployed to the South China Sea, an oil-and-gas-rich body of water that China and several Southeast Asian countries are vying to control. On Wednesday, state-run Xinhua News Agency announced that China would ramp up its military drills in the contested region in the coming weeks.
The prominent weaponry in the video helps portray China's military as a modern, powerful force on par with the U.S. armed forces, a PLA publicity expert told state-run China Daily.
"You can be the next god of the barracks!" The PLA wrote in its description of the video.
While China is not actively engaged in any major wars or battles, the country has a military presence in various parts of the world, including the South China Sea. There's a Chinese naval base in Djibouti in East Africa, where the country is supporting counterterrorism and anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden. China has also stationed members of its military in Mali to support a United Nations peacekeeping mission.
Last September, President Xi Jinping announced that he would cut 300,000 members of the PLA, an ambitious attempt to transition China's army of 2.3 million from traditional land forces to smaller naval and aerial forces that are highly trained and modernized.
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The music video has gained at least 153,000 online views since its release, and it could inspire more young people to serve their country, China Daily noted. Yet reactions on Weibo, a popular Chinese social media platform, appeared to be divided.
"I would join the army if I weren't nearsighted," Weibo user Just Call Me Old Yuan wrote.
"This video's trying to brainwash the kids and send them to the army," said another user, the Unmatched Setting Moon.
"China hasn't been in battle in ages," Investment Hunger 8899 noted. "I don't even know what we'd do on the battlefield."
China has already tried using music videos and cartoons to appeal to young people. Last year, state media released a music video featuring cartoon characters and catchy tunes to introduce China's 13th Five-Year Plan -- a document outlining the country's economic, social and political goals to achieve by 2020.
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Two weeks ago, the country also released a cartoon poster warning young female government workers to stay away from handsome foreign men who may turn out to be spies.
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