And meanwhile the Chinese are rather drastically reducing their troop strength; one of their big problems now is a lot of unemployed and unhappy former military men.
It's not some grand devious plan to have lots of boys for a huge army. Anyway, not like masses of cannon fodder would be relevant in any war with the US anyway.
In some ways, that is even more worrisome. It sounds a little like Germany in the period immediatly following WWI.