Chinese companies are raising militias like it's the 1970s

This CNN article is just a tweaked copypaste of earlier FT reporting. The FT article has no sources and a credulous comment section, some of whom are alleging that ChatGPT is an equally reliable source: https://www.ft.com/content/d6b2e4d6-2f84-4ef9-bf99-10d76d92d... The FT article says that dozens of state-owned enterprises have set up PAFDs in the last 12 months but fails to mention that China has over a million SOEs.

In the english-language internet there are only two prior articles about PAFDs; an RFA article from the third of October last year,: https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/enterprises-militias-... and a VOA article from the 7th on November.: https://www.voanews.com/a/why-is-china-highlighting-militias... Of these two, the RFA article has some sources but they aren't great and both of these news orgs can be alleged to be 100% biased (regardless of what the facts may be) for obvious reasons.

Confusingly, the system for enlisted infantry recruiters also uses the PAFD acronym which means that regardless of search engine, half the results (War on the Rocks, RAND, Asian LII, JSTOR, DoD, DTIC, mod.gov.cn) are useless.

.

Anyway, let's suppose that it is happening as CNN/FT reports. There is an important context question: Is this an order from the CPC at the top or is this our perspective of an ordinary corporate fad in China, their equivalent to six sigma?

There is nothing new about this. It dovetails with private-public fusion.

Taking a partial cue of China's approach to infrastructure development, the US military should expand its civilian domestic involvement beyond the Army Corps of Engineers involvement in megaprojects to assist under-resourced communities, especially those lacking sanitary sewers, clean water, basic broadband, and public transportation. Flood protection is one of its existing primary missions that will need greater funding and preparation for more extreme droughts and storms.

CNN has not exactly maintained a good reputation recently and has emitted some astonishing pieces of misinformation. This doesn't pass the sniff test for me.

Any other reputable sources reporting the same?

I note the 'China is about to take over the world / China is about to self-destruct' mutually incompatible narratives remain consistently pushed.

The 'enemy' is both infinitely strong and pathetically weak etc etc etc.