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The brand new textbooks will state that Britain “solely exercised colonial rule” in Hong Kong, mentioned the South China Morning Put up.
China has contested that it ever gave up sovereignty of Hong Kong and doesn’t recognise the treaties which ceded the territory.
The UK returned Hong Kong to China in 1997 after being a British colony and dependent territory for greater than 150 years.
Hong Kong was seized by Britain within the First Opium Battle and China’s Qing Dynasty formally ceded it to the UK in a treaty in 1842, though it has been a contentious subject.
Within the new textbooks, a transparent disinction will likely be made between a colony and colonial rule, the Chinese language publication mentioned.
They can even state that for a rustic to name an exterior territory a colony it must have sovereignty in addition to governance over the world.
However the British “solely exercised colonial rule [in Hong Kong]… so Hong Kong is just not a British colony”, the textbooks say.
“All the brand new textbooks mentioned Hong Kong was by no means a British colony because the Chinese language authorities had by no means recognised the unequal treaties or given up sovereignty over the town,” the newspaper is cited as saying.
“The textbooks mentioned the United Nations eliminated Hong Kong from an inventory of colonies in 1972 after China made the demand.”
The books will complement a selected course being taught in Hong Kong’s colleges which focuses on citizenship beliefs, lawfulness and patriotism.
The topic will substitute a course which taught pupils vital pondering abilities and concepts on civic engagement, however was criticised by Chinese language authorities throughout the metropolis’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
They declare the course and comparable ones had “radicalised” younger individuals.
The brand new textbooks are but to be printed and are pending last approval by Chinese language authorities, native media added.
Professor Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, mentioned “it’s not shocking that historical past or liberal research textbooks in Hong Kong are being required to satisfy ‘patriotic’ standards.”.
He mentioned that since 2013, Chinese language president Xi Jinping has required all to “embrace one model of historical past solely”.
“Hong Kong was beforehand allowed to be an exception” however “not any longer,” he advised the Customary.
Professor Tsang continued: “Within the Xi strategy to historical past, information are merely incidental. Solely interpretation issues. And just one interpretation is allowed.
“Whether or not Hong Kong was a British Colony or not is due to this fact now as much as the Chinese language party-state. It has nothing to do with dictionary definition of what a colony is or what worldwide legislation could say or what the truth was.”
Nonetheless, he added: “Having mentioned that, the Chinese language Communist Social gathering did have a protracted standing observe of referring to colonial Hong Kong not as a British Colony however as ‘below British occupation’, implying that it didn’t absolutely settle for British rule over HK as having a official foundation for being everlasting.”
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