○ China celebrated its second National Security Education Day on Saturday by promoting anti-espionage awareness in schools
○ Military experts say China is now faced with a much more complicated State security situation than before
Counter-espionage, a phrase that may sound obscure to today's children, was used a lot recently as the government tried to ensure everyone takes China's security into their own hands on National Security Education Day.
Last Saturday, the first set of readers about national security aimed at middle and primary school students were officially published in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province.
The books use easy-to-read language and comics to spread knowledge about national security, the threat apparently posed by spies and how to spot potential terror threats. It also contains games like "find the spy," to drum the concept of national security into students, as Jiangsu People's Publishing LTD (JPP), publisher of the books, told the Global Times.
The book release is just one of a myriad of activities that went on this National Security Education Day, the country's second. The new occasion is part of a broader official drive to deal with national security issues through societal and legal means. In November 2014, China implemented its first Counter-espionage Law. In July 2015, China's new National Security Law was promulgated.
This year, besides eye-catching street banners, community publicity events, vivid videos and graphs shared online that try to convince the public at large of the importance of national security, students from primary schools to colleges were specifically targeted by this publicity drive to mobilize them as a huge counter-spy force.
"We can never be too careful even in peacetime. Spies and secret agents might be all around us," Wang Dawei, a professor with People's Public Security University of China, told with the Global Times.
Nationwide education
The books recently published in Nanjing, which draw their content from the National Security Law, Counter-espionage Law and the Anti-terrorism Law, have been seen by the publishers as touching on a subject that many young people are unfamiliar with.
Even though espionage cases make headlines from time to time, it is hard for students to relate these cloak-and-dagger stories to their own lives. These books seek to make these abstract concepts specific and touchable.
"The books went through tests and amendments in the past year, and will be used on a large scale from this year on," the publishing house revealed, "It is very trendy for middle and primary students to receive this kind of education given the increasingly complicated world situation."
Students at Central China Normal University, in Wuhan, Hubei Province, received a lecture about their role in ensuring national security from Shao Yongling, a senior colonel from the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force Command College who specializes in intelligence, three days before National Security Education Day. The event, which was broadcast live in all Hubei schools, was viewed by 1.53 million college students and 5.52 million primary and middle school students.
Shao focused on trying to persuade the students that threats lie all around them. She cited specific cases, and even talked about how scanning a QR code to unlock a shared bike can lead one into serious trouble. A lot of students, convinced by her lecture, posted to Sina Weibo afterwards to let the world know that they now realize that national security is an issue close to their daily lives.
Charts produced for National Security Education Day by State media also tried to have this effect.
In one chart produced by newscctv.net, readers were given definitions of a spy, what kinds of people are vulnerable to manipulation by foreign governments and how agents of overseas intelligence agencies may set traps or lure people to work for them.
"It is very necessary to carry out national security education. How to keep secrets should be part of the curriculum and every kid should be endowed with this quality, just like they have scientific education," said Wang.
