Explainer | How a history exam question stirred up controversy over China, Japan and Hong Kong’s education system
- The question in the DSE history paper asked if Japan ‘did more good than harm to China’ between 1900 and 1945
- Observers say the furore affected not only the 5,200 students who sat the exam, but has wider implications for Hong Kong
On Friday, Hong Kong’s Education Bureau took the unusual step of ordering the city’s independent examinations authority to strike out a question from the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) history paper.
The offending question focused on the relationship between Japan and China in the first half of the 20th century, including the World War II years.
What set off the storm was the way the question was worded, as well as two accompanying readings. It asked if Japan “did more good than harm to China” between 1900 and 1945.
Pro-establishment politicians and teachers in Hong Kong were outraged, as was the Chinese foreign ministry, before the Education Bureau stepped in to declare the question off-limits and insist on its removal.
The question was criticised as one-sided, and said to have hurt the feelings of Chinese people who remember the atrocities committed by the Japanese while the two countries were at war.
State news agency Xinhua said in a strongly worded commentary on Friday night that if the exam question was not struck out, the “rage of all Chinese sons and daughters would not be able to be settled”.
