Anticipating Invasion: Military Training in Taiwan's High Schools, 1953–1960

When the Guomindang retreated to Taiwan in 1949, Chiang Kai-shek and party leaders feared an imminent Communist invasion. Lacking soldiers in the reserve army, Chiang turned to high school and college students to recruit and train for the armed forces. In 1953, the Ministry of National Defense Political Department implemented mandatory military training in all senior high schools on the island and soon began educating and dispatching military instructors (jiaoguan), both male and female, to gender-segregated schools. Boys received basic infantry training (such as target shooting) while studying GMD revolutionary and military history. Meanwhile, girls participated in similar exercises but also acquired nursing skills. As a result, compulsory military training became a powerful force in Taiwanese high schools throughout the 1950s, preventing student protests against the government and successfully mobilizing male and female youth under an increasingly militarized GMD state.