The politics of national history in post-colonial Hong Kong

Abstract

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has been made possible by the ‘One country, two systems’ administrative structure.

Keywords:

• interest groups
• nation building
• national education
• national history

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the useful comments made on the earlier draft of this article by a reviewer.

Notes

1. Chinese history is a school subject, taught in Chinese; it differs from history, which refers to the discipline of history or history in general.

2. The chronological scope has been extended to 1976 for S1–S3 and S4–S5, in 1975 and 1990 respectively.