LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Conscription: Men
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The atrocities inflicted on Nationalist conscript troops in the Republic of China, during the wars of the 1930s and 1940s against both the Japanese and Communist Chinese forces, constitute a little-known instance of conscription-as-gendercide. At least three million Chinese men -- perhaps a great many more -- were starved, murdered, or worked to death in one of the harshest conscription regimes ever enforced. (This does not include the many hundreds of thousands of "battle age" males killed by the Japanese after capture, or culled from the civilian population in occupied territories. See the case-study of The Nanjing Massacre for details of the worst atrocities.)
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"Despite the North's fundamental differences in the approach to drafting, especially in determining whether men were liable on a selective or a universal basis, it would later experience many of the same difficulties that plagued the Confederate conscription system. In raising and sustaining an army, both regions had much in common. Many of the same influences that motivated Northern men to enter the ranks in the early days of the war ... had encouraged Southern men to do likewise. Not only did they share a common heritage and culture, but men in both areas believed they were fighting for 'freedom,' although they defined it differently."[7]
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Many people thought of conscription as a sign of loyalty to Britain, their mothercountry, and thought that it would ... support those men who were already fighting. However, trade unions feared that their members might be replaced by cheaper foreign or female labour and opposed conscription. Some groups argued that the whole war was immoral, and it was unjust to force people to fight.
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Many young men refused to register and were supported by citizens opposed to conscription. Two conscientious objectors arrested for refusing to register were John Zarb and Robert Martin and both were jailed. Robert Martin talks of his experiences in an oral history recording held in the Library's archival collections.
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In order to enforce the conscription law, the Lincoln regime emulated – and built upon – precedents set by despotic European governments. As documented by Mark Neely in The Fate of Liberty, his Pulitzer-winning 1991 account of civil liberties under Lincoln, the period following enactment of conscription in 1863 was "the lowest point for civil liberties in U.S. history to that time, and one of the lowest for civil liberties in all of American history." Enforcement of conscription led to nation-wide suspension of the writ of Habeas Corpus, and East German-style efforts to seal the border to keep draft-age men from fleeing the country. Hundreds were imprisoned for either seeking to avoid the draft, or even for publicly condemning it.
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The People's Republic of China has conscription for both men and women. Women who are conscripted go to the army for 2 months and learn to fire guns. Information updated: as of 2003 with some information not updated since 1990s, unofficial source.
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