TibetanReview.net, May07’24) —China appears to have embarked on a campaign to militarise its entire population as its economy falters while having adopted bullying or combative tactics to assert its outlandish South China Sea, Taiwan, and India-Tibet border claims. The Communist Party of China apparently hopes that this campaign will be good for ensuring its continued hold on political power at a time when its history of cataclysmic policy failures – dating from the Great Leap Forward Movement, through the decades-long draconian one-child policy, to the recent years-long heart-renting Covid-lockdown measures – threatens to overshadow the success of its economic opening up policy.
The country has proposed a new legislative measure that would require military training at high schools and universities in order to promote awareness of national defence in children as young as elementary school.
The aim is to teach all members of society the “theory, knowledge and skills associated with national defence,” asia.nikkei.com May 7 cited draft revisions to the National Defence Education Law as saying.
The report pointed out that the move to amend the law for the first time since 2018 had come amid rising tensions with the US over Taiwan and the South China Sea. Some universities have already allowed students to train with live ammunition and tanks.
The draft had its first reading by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress late last month, has been opened to public comment, and could be enacted as early as this year, the report said.
The draft is said to call for instilling some degree of national defence awareness among elementary school children. Middle schoolers are to learn basic knowledge and skills, while high school and university students would undergo mandatory military training. This education and training would be guided by the government and the People’s Liberation Army.
Once implemented, local governments would need to include defence education costs in their budgets. Besides, state agencies, universities and other organizations would be held accountable for violations of the law.
“The aim is to make the public aware that war could break out and to make it easier to mobilize them in the event of an emergency,” Masafumi Iida, who specializes in Chinese foreign and security policies at Japan’s National Institute for Defence Studies, has said.
With regard to Taiwan – which China threatens to annex should it move to declare independence, though it is already independent – Fuzhou University in China’s Fujian Province, located across the strait from Taiwan, hosted a military skills competition in July. About 500 university students from around the province competed in target shooting, hand grenade throwing and first aid, the report said.
Besides, China Central Television (CCTV) was stated to have reported on an exercise involving tanks and armoured personnel carriers at a university in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Some schools have new students experience crawling through mud or firing rocket launchers, the report said.
Another aim of expanding national defence education is said to be to recruit tech talent. Expertise in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics and space are in great demand as China rushes to modernize its military. Xi has designated such “emerging areas” in March and called for strengthening the military’s capacity in them, the report noted.
“For Chinese university leaders, one basis for earning the approval of the Communist Party is how many good students their schools can send to the military,” Iida has said.
The People’s Liberation Army Daily was stated to have reported that the number of Chinese university students applying to join the military in 2020 had topped 1.2 million, a roughly sixfold increase over seven years. Local government programmes are stated to provide incentives for signing up. Beijing, for example, offers assistance with tuition, medical insurance and employment after discharge from the military.