Mobilising China’s One-Child Generation. Education, Nationalism and Youth Militarisation in the PRC

This review by Giovannipaolo Ferrari assesses Orna Naftali’s 2024 monograph, Mobilising China’s One-Child Generation: Education, Nationalism and Youth Militarisation in the PRC. Naftali deploys extensive fieldwork and documentary analysis to show how the Chinese state has used school curricula, patriotic rituals and paramilitary-style camps to shape the identities and loyalties of those born under the one-child policy. Ferrari highlights the book’s methodological rigor and its valuable contribution to our understanding of contemporary CCP youth policy, while also noting that further attention to regional variation (especially between inland and coastal areas) and to gendered experiences of mobilization would strengthen the argument. Overall, the review applauds Naftali’s nuanced portrait of how education and nationalism combine to produce a disciplined, militarized generation of Chinese youth.