‘Military’ squads shame loved-up Chinese students
A CHINESE college has come under fire for deploying squads dressed in military uniforms to crack down on couples who kiss and cuddle on its campus.
The student patrols wear camouflage and helmets, and perform intimidating night-time drills marching around Binzhou Vocational College, in the eastern Shandong province, according to videos shared on Chinese social media.
A college official said the squads were responsible for clamping down on a range of “inappropriate behaviour”, including smoking and dropping litter. But many in China have expressed outrage that they have also been given powers to warn couples against showing public affection, and to threaten them with being named and shamed for their behaviour.
Many in China – particularly older generations – are deeply conservative, and public displays of affection are rare in the country. But an adventurous generation of young, mainly urban Chinese are pushing back the frontiers of what is acceptable.
The campus crackdown comes amid a wider war on immoral living that has been launched since Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, assumed leadership of the Communist Party in 2012.
Crass and vulgar comment has been targeted on the Chinese internet, while authorities have sought to curb news reports promoting “Western values”.
However, there was a backlash on social media after a video of Binzhou Vocational College’s student squad went viral. It showed a trio of men wearing helmets and military attire confronting an embracing couple.
The Paper, a Shanghai-based news portal, quoted a college employee saying that the patrol had only sought to give the couple a warning, but that the male student “threw a fit”.
Many of the comments on Sina Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, expressed anger that couples were being
‘What a freak school! The headmaster obviously doesn’t have a happy marriage’
intimidated by military-style squads. “What a freak school!” said one. “The headmaster obviously doesn’t have a happy marriage.”
Another said: “College students can get married, so why can’t they have romantic relationships?”
Media reports said the school had warned in an online post that “serious offenders” could have their names released and face public criticism.
It comes after another college in the city of Rizhao – also in Shandong province – came under fire last year for rolling out a campaign against kissing, cuddling and “uncivilised” behaviour.
The Shandong Foreign Languages Vocational College set up a designated room where students could see photographs of their peers who had been involved in “uncivilised behaviour”, such as holding hands.