A good friend of the family is a genuinely tough customer, who, among other garden spots, fought against the Chinese in Korea. He said that the Chinese were the only people who scared him because they don't value human life like we do. He said (again, his words, not mine) that they'll throw a million men at a hill, and if one is left standing on top they call it a victory.
I'll grant that his knowledge is 60 years old. Still, when he talks, I listen.
Read any biography of Mao. My favorite is "Mao" by Jung Chang. Mao and his still extant Communist Party are about power by any means. People are ants to serve society. Mao wanted a billion Chinese, so the nation could survive an all-out nuclear war with Russia or the USA.
These guys are still in power in Beijing.
Well, considering how many people are constantly killed in their coal mines, that's likely still true to a degree.
But keep in mind that most people now have "one child." If that child's a boy, they're going to be pretty upset if he ends up dead on the bottom of the Taiwan Strait.