Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The recent collision between the freshmen of a Hunan high school and their military training instructors has drawn wide concern. Incidents happen almost every year in military training across the country. Some students might feel uncomfortable or pass out while doing heavy exercises they are unused to, because the intensity is higher than they can bear, and there are also a very few cases of sudden death.

But none of these incidents have been so headline-grabbing like this one. It seems that this incident is the last straw that breaks the camel's back. A wave of introspection has swept across both the Internet and media discourse, raising a public debate about whether military training should be abolished or not. The emphasis is given on the wrong place. It is not a "to be or not to be" question.

Military training is a fundamental form of defense education, and it is required by the Military Service Law. As a necessary approach employed to guarantee the public is physically and mentally prepared for possible wars and clashes, military training is one of the important sources for the vitality of Chinese national defense capability.

In parallel, similar education is also a required course for the young generation in many other countries.

South Korea has voluntary summer camps featuring military training, as well as compulsory military service or a pacifist alternative, like many other countries.

And the US has the voluntary and non-nationalistic scouting organizations, which in some ways aim at improving the young people's commitment to the society and their nation.

The crux of Chinese military training lies in the poor execution of the system. Most schools neglect the importance of the training and muddle along by just letting their students practice boring drills, instead of creating more interesting exercises that would be relevant to modern defense needs.

This system could serve much better purposes if school authorities could put more investment and energy into it.

This article was compiled by Global Times reporter Liu Zhun based on an interview with Huang Haining, an associate professor in national defense and security education at Hainan University. liuzhun@globaltimes.com.cn
Newspaper headline: High time to reform military training