Photo: Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai, former Legislative Council President, talks with the Global Times via a video link.

"Hong Kong has never been a colony of Britain." This truth is being introduced in the new Citizenship and Social Development (Citizenship) textbooks in Hong Kong, setting the right understanding of the region and correcting some long-held flawed thinking in the city's education system, with the aim of respecting history, former Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) president and veteran councilor for the education sector Rita Fan Hsu Lai-tai told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Friday. 

In recent days, the new textbooks for Citizenship, which replaced the much-criticized Liberal Studies edition, has sparked discussions, as the books confirm that Hong Kong has always been the territory of China, as in 1972, China asked the UN to strip Hong Kong and Macao from the list of non-self-governing territories, and this request was approved with a majority of votes, emphasizing that the city has no history of being a colony, except once falling under Britain's colonial rule.

There is complementary material in the textbooks to explain the difference between colonies and those under colonial rule, which means if a country declares an area to be a colony of the country, the country enjoys sovereignty and governance rights over the area, while if a country exercises colonial rule over an area, the country only owns the rights of governance without sovereignty. China has always held sovereignty over Hong Kong, while Britain only exercised colonial rule, according to the new textbooks. 

Western media outlets such as The New York Times and BBC consider the textbooks to be a changing of the narrative, and some connected them with the national security law for Hong Kong and the central government's measures in restoring the security and social order in the city. 

Fan, who has also been advising the education sector, told the Global Times that it's the right time to correct some wrong ideas about the history of the territory and set things right. "Those in the Western media ignored what happened in history," she said. 

"We have never lost sovereignty over Hong Kong. The city was occupied by the British but it's not a colony. This is not only the stance of China, but also the stance of the UN," the former LegCo president said. 

In 1972, Chinese representatives to the UN put forward that Hong Kong and Macao were not colonies, which was opposed by the US and UK, and that's why they constantly claimed that Hong Kong was a colony. However, if we were a colony, we would be able to declare "independence" and have our own nationality and culture. "But the fact is Hong Kong people are Chinese, and our culture is Chinese culture," Fan said. 

Citizenship, a subject modified from the controversial Liberal Studies curriculum, was introduced in the fall semester of 2021, but there was no officially designated textbook. The chaos connected to the previous Liberal Studies subject is expected to change with the publication of the textbooks and syllabus of Citizenship.

Fan said there are teams responsible for clarifying this idea with local teachers, as it's time to correct some wrong ideas that Westerners hoped Hong Kong people would accept. Only when the teachers and students correctly understand history, will incidents such as "Hong Kong independence" or "referendum" not happen again, she said. 

On June 17, Chinese national flags and HKSAR flags are hoisted over Lee Tung Avenue in Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, to celebrate the region's 25th anniversary of returning to motherland. Photo: cnsphoto

With designated textbooks and a detailed syllabus, some teachers will no longer be able to convey their wrong and poisonous political views to students when teaching this course, which had previously been much-criticized by the Hong Kong education community, according to insiders from the education sector. 

Doubling down on the flawed proposition that Hong Kong was a colony reflects the twisted mentality of Westerners, which is contrary to what happened at the UN in 1972, Fan said. 

Besides the new textbook, local schools in Hong Kong will also raise the Chinese national flag and sing the national anthem, and Fan, who is now also the Non-official Member of the Candidate Eligibility Review, said it's very important to make Hong Kong youth understand that they are Chinese, and the city is a territory of China. 

"Schools and students in Western countries are also encouraged to sing their national anthems and raise the national flags," she said, noting that doubting such activity only showed their double standards.