Chinese authorities in the central Tibetan province of Utsang have announced the opening ceremony of its third military training camp for teenage schoolchildren in Nagchu City.

On 13 September, the propaganda department of Nagchu Municipal Committee, a large region in the north of the area governed as Tibet Autonomous Region since 1965, held an opening ceremony for a military training camp for teenage school children. The ceremony involved the Nagchu Education Bureau, Nagchu Fire Rescue Unit, and Nagchu No.2 Medium Unit and more than 500 students from Nagchu’s Second Middle School – a boarding school attended solely by Tibetans. The state media tibet.cn reported that it was the third training to take place which ran for six days. Following the opening ceremony and a Chinese national song, a class 7 (age 12) student, Pasang Wangmo, spoke on behalf of all the trainees. She called upon all students to comply with orders, take their training and study of national defence seriously.

A state media photo showing the opening of the training cam

At the same time as organising students to attend the summer camp for military training, students were also taken to national defence education bases where they received lectures on national defence education, national defence education knowledge and military doctrine, as well as school rules and regulations as the main content.

Tibet Watch has previously reported on similar military camps for children, including one in Nyingtri, close to the heavily militarised border with India. The camps appear to have been constructed earlier this year.

According to Chinese state media reports, such facilities are crucial in providing national defence education to young Tibetans to instil them with “patriotism, love for China and the spirit of defending national border”.