Signs of the times
China has imposed military training on all college students since 1989 in a bid to ensure that the elites of the future absorb official ideology. Even to this day it remains a touchy topic for those who spent a year in military camps during the early 1990
After staging an angry protest that cut short their military training, some of the students of Beijing City University went to coastal Qingdao on a triumphal vacation, celebrating their successful rebellion against what they said was brutal enslavement – the compulsory military training that all Chinese college students face.
Earlier this month, the millennials used social media to complain about the rite of passage: marching in sizzling temperatures; over 300 people showering together in only 10 to 20 minutes; no AC in the dormitories; their cellphones being taken away by officers and other examples of the discipline and discomfort of army life.
Their plight may sound severe, but it pales in comparison with what students experienced more than 20 years ago.
Military training, also known by its full name “military and political training for college students,” was made compulsory for every university student in the fall of 1989 following political turmoil in which academics played a big part.
Students enrolled at the prestigious Peking University ( PKU), a bastion of political movements in China’s modern history, between the fall of 1989 to 1992 were required to spend a year in military camps before they started their full-
timei academicd studies.di FudanF d University in Shanghai imposed the same rule from 1990 to 1992.
The goal, apparently, was to instill patriotism and loyalty into the cream of the crop, who after the turmoil oil were viewed with some suspicion as potential sources of instability.
“The military training has lost its meaning, and I don’t think it’s relevant to this era,” said Zhao Junming ( pseudonym), an employee of a State- owned conglomerate who went to PKU in 1992 and was among the last group of students to spend a year in military camps.
In explaining why he believes there is no longer need for campus military training, Zhao claimed that the whole society, including elites in their ivory towers, have today embraced the supreme ideal of material gains wholeheartedly and are too busy for anything else.
Back in 1992, when Zhao was dispatched to a military camp in Xinyang, Central China’s Henan Province after being admitted to PKU, cultivating the minds of university students was high on the country’s political agenda. Even though years had passed after the political turmoil and no one had mentioned the incident in public since, students were still talking about it.
Zhao, from a rural part of an inland province, said he was overwhelmed by the deluge of information shared by students from Beijing who still had fresh memories of what happened. Zhao’s family did not have a TV and in fact, his village was not connected to the power grid until 1996. When a curfew was imposed at night in the camp, Zhao and dozensd of f hi his f fellowll studentsd would talk endlessly in their dormitories. Exhaustion from the day’s intense drills failed to prevent them from debating state affairs.
Zhao had mixed feelings about the one- year military training, which had made it easier to get into PKU and Fudan. Some top high school graduates chose to apply for other elite universities that required only a month of military training. It was a big news in his home county when Zhao was admitted to PKU.
The military training was comprised of three parts: 30 percent academic studies, 30 percent military training and 40 percent political training. Zhao said he is still grateful to have received the political courses.
The curriculum sounded boring at first – national defense education, socialism construction, revolutionary history and other dry topics.
“But in fact, the lectures laid the theoretical foundations and framework for my way of thinking,” said Zhao, still in awe 24 years later.
For a country boy who had excelled in memorizing textbooks, the political courses gave Zhao his first real taste of philosophy. Zhao attributes his liberal leanings to the year of political education that trained him “to think about things other than survival and mere existence.” It is a bit ironic, he admitted.
For Wang Xiangkun ( pseudonym), admitted to PKU in 1989, his year in the military camp kicked off with confusion. The fall semester began la late that year because of the aftermath of the political chaos. Some of his fellowfe freshmen went to their campus in Beijing to get registered, only to be toldtol they should immediately go to a militarymi academy in Shijiazhuang, about 300 kilometers southwest of Beijing in HebeiHe Province.
WangW recalled that at the end of 1989 an official gave them a lecture about the collapse of Eastern European states and elaborated on what lessons should be drawn from it. “My view of the world was in a state of flux and I was more confused than shocked at that time,” said Wang, a Beijing native who is now employed by a multinational corporation.
Some of Wang’s peers worked hard on their English and cared about nothing else. It worked. When they finished their military training, their English skills were good enough for them to study abroad. Some others joined the Party when they visited Xibaipo, a village where the Communist Party of China ( CPC) held a landmark conference in 1949. “I think they were the real believers,” Wang said.
The students were confined to the military compound and only on Sunday could some of them venture out as there was a limit on how many could leave at one time. Time, which seemed to be passing so slowly because of the monotony of camp life, had become a heavy burden. Like other students, Wang kept writing letters to his parents, friends and old school buddies to vent his boredom and frustration. “Sometimes I wrote three letters in a breath and expected my friends to write back and tell me what their campus life was like.”
In May of 1990, eight months into