The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) drafted a law requiring military training for elementary-aged children.
According to Nikkei Asia, the goal of the law is to teach children the “theory, knowledge and skills associated with national defense.”
Under the draft law, elementary-aged children are to have some defense knowledge, middle schoolers are to learn basic skills, while high school and university students are to have military training.
The People’s Liberation Army will guide the training, the outlet noted.
Nikkei Asia further explained that military enrollment among university students is over 1.2 million, citing the state-run newspaper, People’s Liberation Army Daily.
Timothy Heath, senior fellow for international defense at the RAND Corporation, told Voice of America News that the “attempt to legislate loyalty betrays the reality of declining popular support for the CCP amid a softening economy, worsening real estate market, and persistent corruption and malfeasance.”
“The law also reflects the CCP’s anxiety over an increasingly unsettled international order in which conflicts appear to be rising,” he said.
American Faith reported that some kindergarten-aged children have undergone combat training.
The children are being taught how to handle weapons using toy knives, grenades, rifles, and shoulder-fired missiles.
U.S. Air Force consultant Brandon Weichert told the Daily Caller News Foundation that “[t]here’s sort of a ‘get ’em while they’re young’ mentality that has always been part of the communist ethos.”
“Xi Jinping is trying to inculcate not just a patriotic fervor among the next generation, but I think he’s trying to also create actual next soldiers for the inevitable campaigns that he plans on waging militarily,” Weichert continued.
