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Quinton Chan

THE Preliminary Working Committee's problem-prone culture sub-group yesterday backed down over its controversial proposal to vet all local textbooks.

  In its second major U-turn in weeks, the panel's Hong Kong co-convenor, Dr Raymond Wu Wai-yung, pledged there would be no checking of schoolbooks for compliance with the Basic Law.

  Instead publishers would be free to include whatever they liked, including accounts of the June 4, 1989, crackdown and the recent row over political reform.

  He insisted the PWC panel would do no more than request, through the Joint Liaison Group (JLG), that the Hong Kong Government add a new clause to the advisory guidelines on textbooks to be published in 1997, urging they comply with the Basic Law.

  But Dr Wu pledged that, even if local publishers chose to obey this, it would not lead to any big changes in the textbooks, and so there was no need for them to fear for the future of their businesses.

  'It's just like taking the Queen's head off our stamps,' he said.

  'What we ask for is very simple, just some minor changes on the one China policy.

  'It doesn't even matter if textbooks describe the June 4 incident and Sino-Hong Kong affairs. This won't violate the Basic Law.'   Dr Wu said he expected this proposal to be passed by a full session of the PWC in Beijing next week.

  Yesterday's remarks were in marked contrast to the suggestions of the culture panel two weeks ago, which provoked a storm of protests from educators and legislators.

  It was reported the group had proposed China hand its own textbook guidelines to the British side for discussion in the JLG, and that the Education Department would have to check that all textbooks for the 1997 school year comply with these.

  Soon after this, two major publishers dropped plans to publish new primary textbooks, because they feared some of their contents, including a section on Sino-Hong Kong affairs, might not be acceptable beyond the handover.

  But Dr Wu yesterday blamed the press for the widespread criticism of the earlier proposal, insisting the media had misunderstood what the panel meant.

  The latest U-turn comes only two weeks after the culture panel toned down another controversial proposal that the post-1997 government automatically recognise degrees from 561 mainland universities.

  This was widely attacked as interfering with the autonomy of the future Special Administrative Region.

  But the panel again complained it had been misinterpreted over this, and Beijing then decided to ban press briefings after PWC meetings.

  Democratic Party education spokesman Tik Chi-yuen said last night that even the PWC's new scaled-down proposal on textbooks was unacceptable, and urged the panel to think twice before tabling any suggestions.

  'All the panel is trying to do is stress that Beijing should have some influence over the issue,' he said.

  But group member Xu Ximin said the problem was the bias of some people against the PWC.



Textbook climbdown by PWC sub-group