All Chinese high school pupils forced to do military training

President Xi Jinping is said to fear that young people are losing their patriotic focus and young men their masculinity.

President Xi Jinping is said to fear that young people are losing their patriotic focus and young men their masculinity.

All high school pupils in China will be forced to undergo military service under a new law on “defence education”.

The law, which will end a ­nationwide debate over what is already a common practice, also proposes drills for middle school pupils – aged 12 to 15 – and says defence education should be part of the syllabus even for primary school children.

The law is a natural development of President Xi Jinping’s determination to build China’s military into a force that can compete with America’s.

Meanwhile, the People’s Liberation Army has been facing increasing difficulties with recruit­ment, with China’s growing economy providing better paid and less rigorous career options for school leavers and graduates.

Army training schemes are an annual ritual for most Chinese teenagers, with universities holding courses at the start of the academic year every September.

Students are forced to wear military fatigues and perform drills, sometimes including basic combat and weapons training. Training is regularly imposed on high school students too, but more variably. The new law tightens the wording of existing codes to remove any suggestion that schools or students are allowed to opt out.

The courses are not without controversy, with some teenagers objecting and the training sometimes leading to injuries and even death. There was an outcry six years ago when a 15-year-old boy from Nanjing died of heatstroke after being made to complete an exercise in southern China’s high summer temperatures.

Students on the mainland from Hong Kong and Macau, once exempt, have also been shocked in recent years to receive notices saying they have to turn up to college early for the exercises.

In part the new law seeks to solve a problem. With China’s birthrate having fallen dramatically under the one-child policy, there are fewer potential recruits. The policy is also feared to have created a generation of young adults who have been molly­coddled – something Mr Xi appears to believe, judging by his occasional crackdowns on “effeminate and vulgar” styles of dress and behaviour in young men.

As the economy has boomed, the number of alternative high-paying, higher-prestige jobs has also escalated. However, there was a small rise in applications to military academies last year, amid a youth employment crisis.

Faced with burgeoning high-tech developments, especially in the navy and missile programs, the need for recruits with scientific training has soared, but these are precisely the areas where private industry is offering well-paid alternatives.

Last year, the age limit for training to become an aircraft carrier fighter pilot was raised from 24 to 26. For all applicants, height and weight limits have been relaxed, and a wider array of jobs has been made available to women.

China’s military employs two million people in total, making it the largest in the world, but unnecessary for any likely requirement, given that any invasion of Taiwan would be led by its navy and missile force. However, with its roots in the communist revolution, its size serves as an important image of the party’s control.

The Times