Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defends government’s history teaching policy amid Nanking massacre video controversy
- Carrie Lam says learning Chinese history is important but adds it is not for officials to dictate which videos are used in lessons
- Primary school pupils shown footage of Japanese soldiers brutally killing Chinese civilians in Nanking following 1937 invasion, as part of 84th anniversary commemorations
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor stressed the importance of learning about China’s past, but said teachers were best placed to ensure lessons were age appropriate as she noted past complaints of officials trying to “control everything”.
“It’s not for education officials to dictate or ... provide very detailed guidelines on what to show, when to show and so on,” she told her weekly press briefing on Tuesday.
The controversy emerged after PLK HKTA Yuen Yuen Primary School in Tuen Mun showed footage to pupils – some reportedly as young as seven – of the invading Imperial Japanese Army’s brutal massacre of Chinese civilians in the city now known as Nanjing.
The Education Bureau provided the videos to schools as part of commemorations marking the 84th anniversary of the massacre, which was launched on December 13, 1937.
Some pupils, including those in Primary Two, were described as being distraught by the documentary’s scenes of rampaging Japanese soldiers burying people alive and shooting them in the head.
Lam said she hoped the public would recognise that learning Chinese history was “absolutely important for school education”.
“If we don’t understand history, it’s hard to understand the significance and uniqueness of ‘one country, two systems’,” she said, referring to the governing principle for Hong Kong.