China introduces new history books in Hong Kong to erase British colonial past

The move is just the latest in communist China's continued assault on the small island territory as the government assumes more control over the lives of its people.

According to The Standard, four textbooks were created by three publishers for use in liberal studies classes, now renamed "Citizenship and Social Development," in Hong Kong schools.

The books include numerous falsehoods aimed at erasing Hong Kong's democratic past and painting the Chinese government as the good guys.

For example, all four textbooks explicitly push the idea that Hong Kong is not a colony, with one going so far as to say that while the nation has always belonged to China, the UK "only exercised colonial rule in Hong Kong, so it is not a British colony."

As the South China Morning Post reports, the textbooks go on to say that followings demands from China, the United Nations removed Hong Kong from a list of colonies in 1972.

In reality, Hong Kong was a recognized British colony for over 100 years, from 1841 to 1997, with only a brief period of Japanese rule during World War II.

Also troubling is the textbooks' take on the 2019 social unrest that saw pro-democracy protestors clash with Chinese police over a proposed extradition law that would have given Beijing more power and eroded the "one country, two systems" rule that has been in place since 1997.

Instead of addressing the grievances of the people of Hong Kong, the textbooks simply declare it to have been a threat to national security, and suggest "external forces" were to blame.

The move to re-write history comes as Beijing aims to make "national security" an integral part of education in Hong Kong, as well as to "enhance students’ sense of national identity, and nurture students as good law-abiding citizens."