Fear of war with Taiwan, Chinese children are taking up arms

Last Updated on August 12, 2024 7:04 am

An elementary school affiliated to Jiaotong University in Beijing, capital of China. The age of students is not more than six-seven years. Everyone is standing in a row. One of them has a fake gun. The others follow him and try to catch the gun.

Not only in Beijing, such a picture is now in many provinces of the country. China is preparing to avoid the fear of growing war with Taiwan and threats from the outside world. The seeds of nationalism are being sown from childhood to protect the motherland. As a result, Chinese children are forced to undergo military training in addition to their studies.

Such information emerged in the report of The Guardian on Sunday.

The elementary school posted pictures online last April of children’s military training. The school added a caption to the post. In recent years, it wrote, the school has been working hard to “promote the core values ​​of patriotism as well as making ideals an important part of political and moral education.”
In the post, they also wrote, ‘We will create a strong environment for national defense education. I will conduct rich and colorful activities. To inculcate in the students patriotism, love for the army and organizational discipline and inculcate the ambition to defend and protect the motherland from childhood.’

China’s Ministry of Education and the Central Military Commission named such schools “model schools” in January. Since then, the number of such ‘model schools’ has almost doubled this year. The country may also make ‘cadet training’ legally compulsory for students under the age of 15. A bill proposing to amend the National Defense Education Act in this regard was first read in the rubber-stamping National People’s Congress in April.

However, analysts condemned this military training of children. Bethany Allen, head of the China Program at Australia’s Strategic Policy Institute, said the military education program of young and young children is normalizing China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy.

However, many parents do not object to this activity in China. Besides, many children of Chinese army officers are now undergoing such training. Shanguo Feng, a former soldier in the country, said in a statement to state media that he himself was undergoing such military training at a school in Sichuan.

In the statement, he added, ‘It can help children develop tenacity, courage and hardworking qualities.’