China's Army Tells Potential Recruits To Stop Masturbating

Want to join the China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA)? Cut down on computer games and masturbating. The PLA released ten pieces of advice for possible recruits via instant messaging platform WeChat this month.

The post pointed to one Chinese city that had over 50 percent of its candidates fail their military physical fitness test. The rate, the PLA said, was alarmingly high.

The post said that masturbation and computer games caused eight percent of recruits to fail because of scrotum abnormalities as a result of sitting too much. Another suggestion said that recruits should avoid fizzy drinks and alcohol because around 25 percent of candidates failed blood and urine tests.

Eyesight was the biggest disqualifier, 46 percent of recruits failed their eye exams, the army cited“reliance on mobile phones and other electronic devices.” Recruits were also told to exercise more, 20 percent of recruits failed for being overweight.

Other suggestions included developing better sleeping habits, seeking mental health treatment and not getting tattoos. The tattoos weren’t linked to any physical examination failures.

Two suggestions pointed to some of the poor conditions of the recruits live and from up in. The PLA suggested drinking clean water, 7 percent of recruits failed because of complications from drinking dirty water. The PLA also asked recruits to have better personal hygiene practices. Over three percent failed because of regional diseases like Kashin–Beck, a regional Chinese bone disease associated with poor living conditions.

After the post was published it got widely panned in China, and mocked on Chineses micro-blogging site Weibo, according to the BBC Thursday.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has advocated for a stronger combat-military since he came to power in 2012. The PLA has had trouble attracting recruits, however. The Chinese military has had double digit increases in spending until last year when it slowed to 7.6 percent, according to Reuters in March. This year it went down to seven percent. China spends around 1.3 percent of its GDP on the military.

The military seemed to push back on the social media uproar over the list in state-run newspaper China Daily Wednesday.

“China's recruitment process has strict rules and procedures,” the Defense Ministry told the paper. “The quality of our recruits is guaranteed, and the headwaters of our military will flow long and strong.”

Major General Zhu Chenghu, a professor at PLA National Defense University also refuted the idea that the military had weak recruits.

“The general quality of young recruits has actually improved over the years, with many college students holding degrees in engineering and international relations,” he told China Daily. “A strong body is still very important for a soldier, but education is now more valuable than ever in building a strong, modern military.”