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Jiang's empty ideas are not something to quiz the kids

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Meanwhile, examiners say Form Seven students who took public affairs and liberal studies exams this year failed to understand mainland political theory. For example, they say the students did not show enough knowledge of the 'Three Represents' put forward by former President Jiang Zemin.

SCMP, November 2

My congratulations go to these Form Seven students. Among the most important things they will ever learn in life is what they must treat as important and what they can safely ignore. Here is evidence that they are well on their way to knowing what they can safely ignore.

They are not entirely there yet, of course. If our report is correct, their supposed failing is that they did not show 'enough knowledge' of the Three Represents, which implies they have at least some. I would have thought that any knowledge of the Three Represents actually represents nothing so much as wasted neural cells.

But perhaps there is a role for education here after all. I would say it exists in kindergarten when teaching the kiddies how to count. Just follow the numbers up - the One China Policy, the Two Chinas Error, the Three Represents, the Four Cardinal Principles (the party is boss and you shut up), the Five Year Plans and on we go.

I'm sure that with a little hunting I could find the Six Foundations, the Seven Pillars, the Eight Cornerstones and the Nine Innings, all fundamentals of correct Marxist thought. What a wonderful way to teach kids to count, numbers and discredited ideology at the same time, two for the price of one.

But let's look a little more closely at the Three Represents, which popped up off the top of Jiang's head one day 11 years ago while pontificating to a crowd of flunkies on a tour through Guangdong. Here is his later cleaned-up version, in a speech to a party congress:

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