Deprived no longer: Hong Kong people get to go to war

The People's Liberation Army Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde has said in an interview to Hong Kong Commercial Daily that Hong Kong people are welcome to join the army.

The South China Morning Post reports that it is the first time that a high-ranking officer has gone on the record about enlisting Hongkongers.

Chen is a member of the Central Military Commission and welcomes Hong Kong people to join its ranks, if the government can sort out the legalities.

It is unclear right now how the mainland Chinese military service law could apply to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The Military Service Law could possibly be folded into Hong Kong's Basic Law or an interpretation could be made to allow recruitment from Hong Kong, Macau and even Taiwan.

But Gary Li from intelligence firm Exclusive Analysis, is concerned about the long-term effect this would have on Hong Kong recruits.

The PLA expert said to the Post that he is bothered by "how Hong Kong people, used to their freedoms and lifestyle would fit in with a local PLA garrison in Inner Mongolia full of young soldiers from the villages."

"The PLA has a good track record of taking tough young boys from the countryside and turning them into fine soldiers -- they are generally posted far from their home counties, deliberately putting them out of their comfort zone, and sometimes are given financial inducements for deployments in the desert and so on.

"It is hard to imagine quite how that would work with recruits from Hong Kong."