PLA New Dog Tag

Jamekie said:

You are being irrational, I am pretty sure they don't plan on having their soldier being "rescued" by any foriegn forcess.

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Dog Tags are a system for identifying individuals who may no longer be able to identify themselves or remains. With the PLA deploying abroad in UN missions and the like there is an increased likelihood of disabled PLA Troops getting Rescued or Recovered by other forces.

Jamekie said:

You are being irrational, I am pretty sure they don't plan on having their soldier being "rescued" by any foriegn forcess. And as another person stated above, that special snowflake might actually have their bloodtype distinguished with negative. Also this is about. China and her military, not about how China can best allow the west to understand what is written on their tags. You entire argument/point comes from that end, that western forces whether civilian or militarh would not understand it. But if it works for China why question it, Whats next, a chinese president needs to speak english do he can be undertood?

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Well that totally came way out from the far left field!
Perhaps I need to retract my chastisement of ironman's butthurt and delicate tulip comments LOL but I won't.
So I'm considered irrational for suggesting that putting the universally understood Rh symbol on tags is not a bad thing.

As to your point, tags are for everyone! Regardless of host nations.
It appears that you are 10000% positive that NO injured or incapacitated Chinese warfighters in the future be they airmen, soldiers or sailors will ever ever be cared for by anyone BUT another Chinese person.

Got news for ya.. Outside of China and maybe a tiny handful of nations like Taiwan etc most folks in this world do not understand Mandarin Chinese.

For you to somehow turn my post into some nationalistic agenda is absurd. If anything my post suggesting having Rh values would imply I am looking out for chinese warfighters not against!

kwaigonegin said:

Well that totally came way out from the far left field!
Perhaps I need to retract my chastisement of ironman's butthurt and delicate tulip comments LOL but I won't.
So I'm considered irrational for suggesting that putting the universally understood Rh symbol on tags is not a bad thing.

As to your point, tags are for everyone! Regardless of host nations.
It appears that you are 10000% positive that NO injured or incapacitated Chinese warfighters in the future be they airmen, soldiers or sailors will ever ever be cared for by anyone BUT another Chinese person.

Got news for ya.. Outside of China and maybe a tiny handful of nations like Taiwan etc most folks in this world do not understand Mandarin Chinese.

For you to somehow turn my post into some nationalistic agenda is absurd. If anything my post suggesting having Rh values would imply I am looking out for chinese warfighters not against!

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Firstly, calm down.

Secondly, as I said, since Rh - is so rare, most Chinese dosen't even know which Rh blood group they were. If the army decided to make Ph blood group information on all dog tag, it would have to test every servecemen and women first, that means money and, most important, time. This also means to change the whole emergency blood transfer system (kinda pointless to have you Rh infomation on dog tag but your feild hospital dose not have the ability to react according to it, right?), from frontline medical handbook to hospital blood bank, which also need money and time.

Also, this is still an alpha test in only 13 units, it's not final.

My opinion is that the Rh system is key to proper blood transfusion. So there is no reason to get around it.

To say that Chinese don't have too many negative Rh types won't help the case. Firstly, you don't want to risk killing your own troops simply because their percentage is low. I don't think it's a good thing to let your own soldiers get the feeling that their lives don't matter just because they are the minority in blood types. Not even 0.001% would cut it. How would you feel if someone tells you: "your life doesn't matter because you belong to a small group of 0.001%". And what about: "if you have Rh-, you better not join the PLA because there is a big chance that you will die on the operation table even if you survive the battle field..." Not a good thing... Additionally, 0.34% out of 2 million strong PLA would be 6800 soldiers. that's a lot of loyal Chinese young men and women who might be killed by their own medical personnel if and when they get injured in combat...

Secondly, the PLA has significant portion composed of minority ethnic groups whose genetic makeup is more Mid East/European than East Asian. then there is a big chance that these minority groups might have a bigger % with Rh-. You don't want to marginalize them by not even caring their blood types.

My take on the tag:
1) We have only seen one side of each tag. The Rh type might be on the other side...
2) They chose not to have Rh symbols on the tags because, on battle field, small symbols can be easily damaged and become unrecognizable, thus useless to medical personnel. Difference between "+" and "-" is small. What would you do if you see a tag with a scratch across a seemingly "-" symbol? Do you assume it's the "-" or "+"? So they might have decided not to put the Rh symbols on tags but keep the data in detailed medical info accessible via the 2D code.

vesicles said:

They chose not to have Rh symbols on the tags because, on battle field, small symbols can be easily damaged and become unrecognizable

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I call bull on that one as if you look at the tag they included a Full PLA star with August 1 which is far smaller than a + or - character, same for the details of the Chinese character. The Style looks laser etched to me which is not easy to damage.
If they were worried about possible wear and tear they could have issued it with a transparent case.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

I call bull on that one as if you look at the tag they included a Full PLA star with August 1 which is far smaller than a + or - character, same for the details of the Chinese character. The Style looks laser etched to me which is not easy to damage.
If they were worried about possible wear and tear they could have issued it with a transparent case.

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The PLA star doesn't contain critical information. The soldiers wearing the tags should also be wearing uniforms. So no one would mistaken them for some other troops.

About the Chinese characters, as you can see, these characters are very complex with different strokes. A Typical Chinese person would be able to differentiate most characters even when the characters are 70-80% gone. So there should be no danger of mistaking some character for others.

"+" or "-", on the other hand, is way to simple.

I do agree that issuing plastic cover might solve that problem.

kwaigonegin said:

Well that totally came way out from the far left field!
Perhaps I need to retract my chastisement of ironman's butthurt and delicate tulip comments LOL but I won't.
So I'm considered irrational for suggesting that putting the universally understood Rh symbol on tags is not a bad thing.

As to your point, tags are for everyone! Regardless of host nations.
It appears that you are 10000% positive that NO injured or incapacitated Chinese warfighters in the future be they airmen, soldiers or sailors will ever ever be cared for by anyone BUT another Chinese person.

Got news for ya.. Outside of China and maybe a tiny handful of nations like Taiwan etc most folks in this world do not understand Mandarin Chinese.

For you to somehow turn my post into some nationalistic agenda is absurd. If anything my post suggesting having Rh values would imply I am looking out for chinese warfighters not against!

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You're thinking it and you want to say it but you don't want to be labeled as hypocritical. I understand.

DaKai said:

Firstly, calm down.

Secondly, as I said, since Rh - is so rare, most Chinese dosen't even know which Rh blood group they were. If the army decided to make Ph blood group information on all dog tag, it would have to test every servecemen and women first, that means money and, most important, time. This also means to change the whole emergency blood transfer system (kinda pointless to have you Rh infomation on dog tag but your feild hospital dose not have the ability to react according to it, right?), from frontline medical handbook to hospital blood bank, which also need money and time.

Also, this is still an alpha test in only 13 units, it's not final.

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This is definitely wrong thinking. Rh(-) might be rare but if you give Rh(+) blood to someone who is Rh(-) he/she may DIE from a transfusion. This is the reason no matter what the percentage of Rh positivity exists in the Chinese gene pool, it is and will be a listed characteristic of a soldier's blood type. Whether an average Chinese citizen knows what Rh group they belong is totally irrelevant to whether the PLA knows whether an individual PLA soldier is Rh(+) or Rh(-). A blood test to determine ABO/Rh type costs a few dollars and it is ridiculous to think that cost is any kind of barrier to accurate information on soldiers' blood types.

Iron Man said:

This is definitely wrong thinking. Rh(-) might be rare but if you give Rh(+) blood to someone who is Rh(-) he/she may DIE from a transfusion. This is the reason no matter what the percentage of Rh positivity exists in the Chinese gene pool, it is and will be a listed characteristic of a soldier's blood type. Whether an average Chinese citizen knows what Rh group they belong is totally irrelevant to whether the PLA knows whether an individual PLA soldier is Rh(+) or Rh(-). A blood test to determine ABO/Rh type costs a few dollars and it is ridiculous to think that cost is any kind of barrier to accurate information on soldiers' blood types.

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We don't actually know that they don't specify Rh- for the rare soldiers who do have that blood type. The denotation scheme might very well be 'default positive' unless otherwise specified. It's too early to say for sure if Rh- personnel are accommodated.

jobjed said:

We don't actually know that they don't specify Rh- for the rare soldiers who do have that blood type. The denotation scheme might very well be 'default positive' unless otherwise specified. It's too early to say for sure if Rh- personnel are accommodated.

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I think the chance of Rh(-) personnel NOT being accommodated (i.e. military blood banks not storing their Rh type), is just about zero. They may stock Rh(+):Rh(-) blood at 50:1 or 100:1 or whatever, but they will stock it or else any Rh(-) personnel receiving a significant bleeding injury receives essentially a death sentence that could otherwise be treated very simply with a transfusion.

Iron Man said:

I think the chance of Rh(-) personnel NOT being accommodated (i.e. military blood banks not storing their Rh type), is just about zero. They may stock Rh(+):Rh(-) blood at 50:1 or 100:1 or whatever, but they will stock it or else any Rh(-) personnel receiving a significant bleeding injury receives essentially a death sentence that could otherwise be treated very simply with a transfusion.

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Do we know if the PLA lets Rh(-) personnel join its ranks ? Nowadays they might just not allow them to join up, if they feel this would be too much logistical trouble. If there are some regions where Rh(-) is more common, they might make exceptions for units from places where it would be easier to provide Rh(-) blood.