Some online users yesterday called for the enhancement of public awareness regarding the nation’s military uniform, after a photo went viral of some high-school students wearing fatigues similar to those of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
Taoyuan’s Yung-Feng High School shared a photo from a camping trip, in which students are wearing combat uniforms resembling those of the PLA and posing with their palms pointing upward and above their heads, which some users said looks like the salute of the Young Pioneers of China.
The Young Pioneers of China is a youth organization affiliated with the Communist Youth League of China.
Photo: screen grab from former Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hao-yu’s Facebook page
Many online users demanded an investigation on the teachers responsible for the camping trip, while some tagged the Ministry of National Defense to request that schools teach differences between the military uniforms of Taiwan and China.
China’s “united front” propaganda has intruded into Taiwan’s schools, former Taoyuan city councilor Wang Hao-yu (王浩宇) said yesterday.
“Students wearing these fatigues shows a lack of awareness of young people to enable them to distinguish members of the armed forces from those of China... Now they directly import the military salute of a Chinese youth group. It is clearly united front work,” Wang wrote on social media. “This is outrageous.”
School officials have closed the school’s Facebook page.
In a statement yesterday, the school said students were taking part in a paintball match and a travel agency supplied the camouflage fatigues.
It denied that the hand salute was related to Chinese organizations, saying that it was just a new gesture created by the students of that class and had no political connotation.
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