TAIPEI, July 5 (Reuters) – Taiwan’s military has resumed “anti-communist” patriotic classes for its graduates after a quarter-century gap, the defence ministry said on Sunday, citing a rising threat from China as a senior official reported another rise in Chinese naval activity.
During the Cold War, campaigns in Taiwan warning against the dangers of the “communist bandits” in China, whose government views the island as its own territory, were widespread.
But the formal “anti-communist patriotic education” for military graduates ended in 2002, being renamed “patriotic education”.
Taiwan’s defence ministry said in a statement that the classes for its military academy graduates had been restored due to rising military and infiltration danger from China.
“It is necessary for them to clearly understand national security threats and recognise the military mission of ‘why we fight, and for whom we fight’,” the statement said.
China’s defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment outside office hours. China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.
Officials from departments including the China-policy-making Mainland Affairs Council, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Justice and top government think tank Academia Sinica will offer lectures to the graduates, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
“The aim is to establish among graduates a clear awareness of friend and foe,” it added.
China’s military operates almost daily around Taiwan.
As of Friday, Taiwan was tracking a record of more than 110 Chinese military and Coast Guard ships up and down the first island chain, Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, posted on X late on Saturday.
“China’s massive maritime mobilization along the 1st Island Chain is a clear sign of its expansionism,” Wu said, referring to an area stretching from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and Borneo.
On Saturday, China’s Coast Guard launched a new patrol off Taiwan’s east coast, drawing a sharp response from Taipei, which says Beijing has no jurisdiction in those waters. Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Joe Cash in Beijing; Editing by William Mallard)
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