To ensure that no one remembers Hong Kong as a free and vibrant democracy, China has started writing alternate history

Chinese Communist Party has started in Hong Kong what it has mastered in Mainland China, and that is, whitewashing the historical identity by forcing alternate history down the throat of the citizens. Britain’s rule of Hong Kong was an “occupation which violated international conventions” according to draft teaching materials for revamped liberal studies courses that a major publisher has sent to teachers throughout the city. This exactly is the modus operandi which follows a take over of any people, and in this case, CCP is following every word of the book.

The return of the government to China in 1997 was also represented in the learning materials as Beijing “resuming the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong,” whereas “handover” had previously been used exclusively to describe the event in the company’s textbooks for the subject. Teachers have expressed concern that the changes, which are part of a larger overhaul of the compulsory subject for older students, would limit classroom discussion of Hong Kong history.

The best way to subjugate people is to remove their history and make them oblivious of their historical identity, this is exactly what the Chinese Communist Party is doing in the case of Hong Kong. As reported by SCMP, The materials developed by Ling Kee Publishing were sent to schools this week to help teachers prepare classes for Form Four students starting in September when the overhauled subject will be renamed “citizenship and social development” with a greater emphasis on patriotism, national development and lawfulness. Publishers have been distributing new teaching materials to schools recently but all of them must be vetted by the Education Bureau under changes adopted last year.

The Chinese government has taken other steps before this too, making these pretty much obvious. Earlier Beijing’s media regulators ordered local news outlets not to air live coverage of the Oscars ceremony and to tone down their coverage of the event overall. The boycott of the Oscars, which have a significant Chinese viewership, is thought to be in reaction to the nomination of the short documentary, Do Not Split, which addresses the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, as well as ongoing official unease about past statements attributed to Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao, who was nominated in the best director category for Nomadland.

Read more: CCP threatens Hollywood to not give Oscar to ‘Do Not Split’, a documentary based on Hong Kong

While those steps were to make the international narrative suit the CCP’s agenda, these latest measures are aimed at making the Hong Kongers the loyal lot like the mainlanders have become. To make things more obvious Ling Kee’s version also said the Chinese government had “never recognised the effectiveness of unfair treaties” between the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) and Britain. Unlike previous liberal studies textbooks that presented contrasting political viewpoints, the new materials made no mention of the widespread public outcry over the law, a move teachers said was “not surprising” considering that previous education guidelines emphasised the issue was not up for discussion.