Revisionist History: Pro-Communist Textbooks Claim Hong Kong was Never a British Colony

The United Kingdom was never the colonial ruler of Hong Kong according to revisionist textbooks reportedly produced for the communist puppet government of the city.

Once again confirming the primacy of Beijing over Hong Kong, despite the Sino-British Joint Declaration guaranteeing domestic rule in the city until 2047, textbooks produced for “liberal studies” in secondary schools have denied that the British were colonial rulers in Hong Kong.

A report from the South China Morning Post said that the textbooks, which are pending approval by the Education Bureau, have also taken up Beijing’s line on the 2019 pro-democracy protests, claiming that they were instigated by foreign powers and undermined national security.

The change to the “liberal studies” coursework comes after pro-CCP officials blamed the course, which aimed to increase critical thinking and social awareness, for radicalising students against Communist China.

The influence of communist ideology on Hong Kong education was one of the central issues during the 2014 Umbrella Movement, in which youth activists such as Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow led over 100,000 students and others in protest against the implementation of the so-called “Moral and National Education” promoted by the CCP-aligned government of then Cheif Executive CY Leung.

Commenting on the change to the textbooks, Benedict Rogers, the founder and chairman of Hong Kong Watch, told Breitbart London: “This extraordinary attempt to rewrite history is typical of the Chinese Communist Party’s mendacity and an alarming sign of worse to come.

“Teaching Hong Kong children a completely false version of history is part of Beijing’s plan to brainwash Hong Kongers with CCP propaganda.”

Following the defeat of imperial China during the 19th century Opium Wars, Britain took control of the island of Hong Kong in 1842 under the Treaty of Nanking and later assumed authority over the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 under the Convention of Peking. The UK would continue to rule over the city until the Hong Kong handover of 1997 in which it was ceded to the CCP in Beijing.

Despite over 150 years of colonial rule, Communist China has long denied the validity of the treaties, using the socialist legal theory that because there was a power imbalance between the two powers when they were signed, the treaties should be invalidated.

While this argument has never been accepted in international law, in 1972 — one year after Communist China was admitted into the United Nations — Beijing successfully lobbied the U.N. to remove Hong Kong and Macau from its list of ‘Non-Self-Governing Territories’, meaning that they lost the right self-determination guaranteed under the 1960 “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.”

Though it has been claimed that most of the 99 member states who voted on Resolution 2908 were unaware of the clause on Hong Kong, as it was a minor insertion, the Communist Party has since used it as evidence of the UK never having colonial rule over the city.

Hong Kong freedom activist in exile in Britain, Finn Lau told Breitbart London: “The Chinese Communist Party and the Beijing-controlled Hong Kong authority are attempting to spread misinformation in order to justify its coercive diplomacy between 1945 and 1997 towards the UK and Hong Kong people.”

Lau lamented, however, that if the U.N. had not adopted Resolution 2908, there would likely have never been a Hong Kong handover to China in 1997 as may have been able to secure its independence from both Britain and Beijing thereby negating the need for the “subsequent large scale movement in Hong Kong fighting for democracy and civil liberties in 2014, 2016 and 2019-22.”

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka