Hong Kong had long been taken for granted as just a barren rock when it first fell into the hands of the British colonisers. But this portrayal is now being dismissed by the Chinese media as a fallacy.
As Chinese authorities seek to cast a new identity for their post-1997 Special Administrative Region, the issue of whether the territory was formerly a place of poverty has assumed ideological significance.
Beijing is apparently unhappy with the theory that British colonial rule helped elevate Hong Kong from poor fishing village to the world's eighth largest trading entity. The Chinese propaganda machines have been trying to play down the British factor in the territory's story of success.
Local left-wing papers, for instance, now insist that a steady supply of cheap food, water and labour resources from the mainland, coupled with a tolerant Chinese policy, is what made Hong Kong tick.
Recently, the mainland media has gone a step further by suggesting that Hong Kong had been a brisk Chinese town, even before the British invasion.
A few weeks ago, the Guangming Ribao, or Brightness Daily, carried a feature headlined 'Hong Kong not a barren land before British occupation'.