Taiwan has resumed "anti-communist" patriotic classes for military graduates for the first time in 25 years, the defence ministry said on Sunday, citing the growing threat from China.
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The announcement came as a senior defence official reported a further increase in Chinese naval activity around the island.
"It is necessary for them to clearly understand national security threats and recognise the military mission of 'why we fight, and for whom we fight'," the statement by the ministry said, as cited by Reuters.
Taiwan's defence ministry said officials from agencies including the Mainland Affairs Council, the National Security Council, the Ministry of Justice and the government-funded research institution Academia Sinica will deliver lectures to military academy graduates as part of the programme.
"The aim is to establish among graduates a clear awareness of friend and foe," it added.
During the Cold War, Taiwan widely promoted campaigns warning against what it referred to as the "communist bandits" in China, which claims the island as part of its territory.
However, the formal "anti-communist patriotic education" programme for military graduates was discontinued in 2002 and renamed "patriotic education."
As of Friday, Taiwan was tracking a record of more than 110 Chinese military and Coast Guard vessels operating across the First Island Chain, Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan's National Security Council, said in a post on X late on Saturday.
"China's massive maritime mobilization along the 1st Island Chain is a clear sign of its expansionism," Wu wrote, referring to the stretch of territory extending from Japan through Taiwan and the Philippines to Borneo.
On Saturday, China's Coast Guard launched a new patrol off Taiwan's east coast, prompting a sharp response from Taipei, which said Beijing has no jurisdiction over those waters. Taiwan's government continues to reject China's claims of sovereignty over the island.
