history is a subject that tends to be easily reshaped. This could not be more true in Hong Kong, where the Chinese regime has undertaken to tighten its grip in recent years, notably through the law on national security. And the history textbooks that will be opened by college students in the former British colony next September will be affected, explains International mail from information from the local daily Mingpao.
The Hong Kong newspaper was able to consult the book in question, comparing it to that distributed until then in the colleges of the city-state. One of the changes concerns the opium war between China and England from 1839 to 1842. Now things like “Qing dynasty trade restrictions, failure of Sino-British trade negotiations … ” disappeared. This is also the case for negative expressions relating to the Qing dynasty, in power from 1644 to 1912.
“An unjust war of aggression”
A history teacher in Hong Kong, Chen Renqi, notes that “the yellow lines are everywhere.” Therefore, most of his colleagues will probably “follow the textbooks”, for fear of the consequences of a possible refusal.
International mail also notes how the Chinese search engine Baidu qualifies the opium war, one of the most traumatic historical facts for the country: “An unjust war of aggression launched by Great Britain against China from 1840 to 1842 It was also the beginning of the modern history of China’s humiliation. A version which, also in Hong Kong, seems little by little to invite itself in history textbooks.
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