China plans to implement a new military training program for high school students nationwide starting on August 1, in order to adapt to what it calls “the new situation” and to strengthen the “national defense reserve force,” but analysts are divided on whether the military training for high school students is needed for war preparation. The new syllabus emphasizes adapting to the new situation.
New syllabus emphasizes adaptation to new situation
China’s Ministry of Education, in conjunction with the Ministry of National Defense Mobilization, has issued a new syllabus for military training for high school students, which will be implemented nationwide on August 1, 2021, the Army Day.
CNN reported on April 13 that the new version of the military training syllabus came into effect at the same time that the syllabus of the same name issued in 2003 was scrapped because the old syllabus was “increasingly unsuited to the new situation. The preface to the new syllabus says the move is intended to implement the “goal of strengthening the military” and to enhance the “national defense reserve force”.
Professor Gong, a retired professor from Hebei, told the Voice of America, “The military training for middle school and college students is definitely a prep for future wars, and educated people are definitely braver and more resourceful, and the quality of the whole army will improve.”
He also said that this military training is actually trying to bring young people “back to an environment dominated by mainstream thinking, but of course not everyone can accept it, that is another matter.”
A girl (high school student?) who participated in military training in Tianjin recalled to the Voice of America that the military training was “a way to bring young people back to a mainstream environment. Speaking to the Voice of America, she recalled that military training is mostly a formality, with firing drills mostly canceled in recent years due to safety concerns, leaving only line-ups and kicking drills. The instructors are not all active duty soldiers.
Comment: The Chinese Communist Party emphasizes preparation for war whether or not to fight
Hu Ping, a U.S.-based writer, told the Voice of America that the Chinese Communist Party is strengthening this type of military training: “I’m afraid it’s more to strengthen the obedience (awareness), obedience and discipline of these high school students, because there is no obvious need to prepare for war.”
Hu Ping said, “Today China itself does not have any external threats, and no country directly threatens to invade China. The Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea are all issues that are causing tension because China has a tendency to want to change the status quo there. As long as China does not go too far, no war will break out. It’s up to the Chinese government to break out into war, so I don’t think that China’s military training of high school students is motivated by the need to prepare for war.”
However, overseas Forbidden News Network quoted U.S.-based current affairs commentator Li Yanming as saying, “Tensions are currently heating up in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in the Taiwan Strait, where the Chinese Communist Party seems to be getting louder and louder in disturbing Taiwan, and whether it dares to fight or not, the Chinese Communist Party will consider preparing for war.”
In recent years, Xi Jinping has frequently sent signals that the military should be prepared for war, and on Oct. 13 last year, when inspecting the Marine Corps in Chaozhou, Guangdong, Xi asked the entire military to “put all their thoughts and energy into preparing for war and maintaining a high state of readiness.”
Some commentators believe that the CCP is using Mao’s successful experience in brainwashing Chinese people to promote war preparedness and divert domestic conflicts by launching another youth military training program. According to an article on the Pinion online platform, the partial or total removal of students’ communication rights during military training creates an information vacuum that provides the perfect opportunity for indoctrination, and fills the vacuum with the cult of military power and nationalist inflammatory rhetoric from the mouths of instructors, which constitutes uncompromising militaristic ideological education.
A recent poll by China’s Global Times said that young Chinese are experiencing “both gradual and abrupt changes” in the way they look at the West, with the percentage of young people who look at the West “flat” rising by 6 percentage points in five years, and the percentage who look up to the West falling by about 30 percent. The proportion of young people who look at the West “flat” has increased by 6 percentage points in five years, while the proportion of those who look up has decreased by about 30%. More than 40 percent of young Chinese see the West “flat” and “looking down”, and together with the Chinese people, they are entering an era of “re-examination” of the West.
However, Professor Gong, a retired professor from Hebei, said that young people nowadays think differently from those of us who are older, because we seem to understand that it is not easy to “look at” or “look down” on the world, and that these young people are not very involved in the world and have not experienced History.
Military service is no longer the best option for young people
China’s military service law stipulates that every year by December 31, male citizens who have reached the age of 18 should be drafted for active service. Those who are not drafted that year can still be drafted for active service until they are 22 years old.
As for whether the overall condition of current high school and first-year college students is suitable for military service, the issue has drawn the attention of public opinion from multiple angles.
Hu Ping said, “The current source of soldiers is indeed not the same as our situation back then. In our time, being a soldier was considered a good way out, and we generally went to the mountains and the countryside, and the sons of high cadres and those with connections were able to become soldiers. It is good for rural children to become soldiers, otherwise you are bolted to the land for life, and the economic situation in the countryside is so bad. Now that the economic situation has improved, there are certainly fewer willing to become soldiers, plus they are only children.”
Professor Gong, a retired professor from Hebei, believes that a significant portion of the 18- and 19-year-old high school and college-age young people today are aspiring to the military, and there is a hot blood flowing in them. He said, “It is not that the high level of education will be timid, backward retreat, in the past, many are the children of rich families to enter the military school, when the officers are often very good family, including some of the early leaders of the Communist Party, their families are very good, of course, there are poor people struggling up.”
The upcoming “Military Training Syllabus for High School Students” provides for two major elements of military training: basic military knowledge and basic military skills. The teaching time is 7 to 14 days, not less than 7 days and 56 hours. Among them, the basic military knowledge part includes Xi Jinping’s military thinking. Military skills, in addition to team movements, also include light weapons firing, bomb throwing, tactical movements, fighting basics (capture fist), as well as military sports, health and rescue, map reading and use of maps, etc., some of which are “optional training”.
Analysts point out that the training of army reserves shows that the modern army demands much more from its soldiers than ever before, both in terms of physical strength and military skills, and in terms of loyalty to the Communist Party.
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