Hong Kong’s education under attack: outrage over history paper asking whether Japan did more good than harm to China during war years tip of the iceberg

A university entrance exam question on pre-WWII Sinco-Japanese relations that sparked outrage is the latest controversy to roil the sector

But the city’s failure to implement the national education curriculum in 2012 and growing anti-mainland sentiment linked to liberal studies have long been issues

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Students sit for the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) at the Munsang College in Kowloon City on April 27. Photo: Handout

Published: 10:27am, 16 May 2020Updated: 7:03am, 18 May 2020

On Thursday morning, 5,200 Hong Kong students sat their history paper for the Diploma of Secondary Education, the city’s main university entrance examination.

By that night, all hell had broken loose over one question in the exam, which asked candidates to discuss if Japan “did more good than harm to China” between 1900 and 1945.

A barrage of angry criticism arrived from pro-establishment politicians and educationists as well as Chinese foreign ministry officials, followed by a late-night missive from the Education Bureau attacking the independent Examinations and Assessment Authority responsible for setting the paper.

By Friday afternoon, a fuming Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung said the exams authority would be told to strike out the offending question and make the necessary adjustments in marking the paper.

As far as he was concerned, the exam presented a leading question accompanied by reading materials that were biased enough to leave some students thinking Japan might have done some good in the years leading up to and during World War II, when that was clearly not the case.

“The question deviates from objective facts,” Yeung said. Given Japan’s invasion of China, he said, the only answer to the question was that Japan only did harm but no good. “There is no room for discussion,” he declared.