It also said priority would be given to recruiting students in universities’ science and technology schools and those with skills necessary for fighting in a war.
The Global Times reported on Monday that such STEM skills include those related to the internet, communication, engineering, surveying and drone operation.
Yu Qi, from Zhejiang province, told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday that he wished to "serve the motherland with his righteous ardour".
"The recent situation in the Taiwan Strait has worried every one of us, and it has also shown that peace can only be attained by a country’s power," he said. "I am willing to serve the motherland and make the title ’soldier’ my lifelong glory."
Yu, in his early 20s, was among 110,000 people in Zhejiang who recently applied to join the PLA, with nearly 70 per cent holding university degrees, CCTV reported.
The latest Taiwan crisis was sparked by a visit to Taipei by Nancy
San Fran NanPelosi
Congresswoman-for-Life from the San Francisco Bay Area, born into a family of professional politicians. On-again-off-again Speaker of the House. It's not her fault when they lose, but it's her accomplishment when they win. Noted for her heavily botoxed grimace and occasional senior... uhhh... moments..., speaker of the US House of Representatives. Pelosi met pro-independence Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and other senior politicians as well as human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal
liberty...
activists, before flying on to South Korea last week.
Pelosi, second in line for the United States presidency, was the highest-ranking American official to visit Taiwan in 25 years. Beijing was enraged by her visit, and condemned the trip as a breach of Washington’s one-China policy.
Soon after Pelosi left, the PLA announced a series of live-fire drills encircling the island. It fired 11 ballistic missiles directly over Taiwan, sent warplanes and vessels across the median line that divides the strait, flew drones over Taiwanese airspace and deployed at least one aircraft carrier and a nuclear submarine in a simulated blockade.
However,
if you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning...
an officer responsible for recruiting new soldiers in Hubei province said the Taiwan crisis was not expected to spur a major boost in people’s willingness to join the PLA because people mostly joined up for personal reasons.
"Young Chinese people join the army mainly for three reasons: one is personal affection towards the army because of influences from relatives and friends; the second is viewing joining the army as getting employed; and the third is aimed at becoming a civil servant when leaving the military as a promoted soldier," the officer said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Another officer, surnamed Tian, who is in charge of veterans affairs in a city in Hubei, echoed the view. "China’s soldier recruitment rolls out routinely, so this year’s recruitment won’t be affected by the Taiwan crisis, which erupted only recently," she said.
But Tian said she had observed an unusual phenomenon.
"I found that the number of soldiers leaving the Chinese navy has decreased remarkably in the past two years," she said. "It might be a sign that the Chinese navy is expanding and preparing for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait."
The PLA has the largest navy in the world by number of warships, and the launch of a third aircraft carrier in June took it closer to its goal of building a blue-water navy with at least six aircraft carrier battle groups by 2035.\