Your view on using excess males for war has some historical support. However, I do not feel most of China's leaders hold this view. China is working very hard at modernization. There are more than enough work projects to keep the excess males busy. China's leadership has shown over and over for the last 20 years that it values internal and external investment rather than military use. Sending extra males to Africa and Australia to build mining systems is far more likely (and something actually happening) than using them to die in battle.
The glut of China's males is not a particularly new problem as selective breeding for males is a deep part of their culture.
To be sure, a series of missteps could place China in a position to use its military. However, the surplus males would be used in this case simply as a resource available and not as part of some master plan.
I agree with you that that is what China's leadership wants.
But it's almost impossible to estimate the kind of pressure that will be put on those leaders, when these 30million+ poor males start realizing they are not going to reproduce.
On top of not having the ability to reproduce, these 30million+ poor males are going to be shouldered with the responsibility of spending their money to support their parents.
It's a psychological crunch if there ever was one. A psychological crunch of epic proportions.
I predict the Chinese authorities already have pacification plans in place. Probably a combination of wide-scale drugging and relentless propaganda emphasizing pacifism, loyalty, and duty to the state. The Chinese authorities will need to find a scapegoat that isn't themselves, and it will probably be some combination of every other country. :)
If the Chinese authorities point the aggression of these poor males in the direction of other countries, you have a recipe for war even if the war is just an Orwellian war-for-show.
I would recommend slavery as an option to relieve the pressure, but typically even slaves are allowed to have children and then the children are used as collateral to keep the men in line when they would otherwise revolt.
Beyond mass-scale drugging and propaganda of unimaginable magnitude I don't see how this can't end violently - whether the violence occurs within China or is exported to some dumping ground like Africa.
There are more than enough work projects to keep the excess males busy.
Motivated by what, tho'? Don't underestimate biological imperatives. How much money is enough to pay a hundred million men that there simply aren't women for?
The glut of China's males is not a particularly new problem as selective breeding for males is a deep part of their culture.
To be sure, a series of missteps could place China in a position to use its military. However, the surplus males would be used in this case simply as a resource available and not as part of some master plan.