Education Minister Chen Baosheng, who is attending the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, said in an interview with RTHK that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government is obligated to provide national education at local primary and secondary schools. He also promised to help on behalf of the central government whenever the city asks for it. He also agreed the emergence of "Hong Kong independence" advocacy is linked to inadequacies in Hong Kong's education system. What he meant by that is that the absence of national education gave separatism an opportunity to spread among Hong Kong's younger generation.

Chen's comments are further confirmation of the central authorities' stand on national unity, sovereignty, security and development interests from an educational point of view. As he emphasized in the interview, national education should focus on teaching students about the Basic Law, general knowledge about the country, including Chinese history, and help them acquire a sense of belonging with the country. In recognizing Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung's recent statement that national education will definitely be introduced as a standard curriculum in Hong Kong soon, Chen assured Hong Kong society that the central government will respond to any request for support, explanation or help concerning national education. That promise is no doubt in keeping with President Xi Jinping's expectations that Hong Kong will fulfill its constitutional obligation to safeguard the nation's sovereignty, security and development interests, which are vital to the city's long-term stability and prosperity, too.

Last time the SAR government tried to introduce national education in primary and secondary schools the efforts were blocked by some radical political groups in 2012. They slandered the teaching materials recommended by the government as "brainwashing" and claimed local schools would suffer undesirable consequences if they decided to offer national education classes per government policy. By doing so those political groups in a way deprived local residents' right to receive proper education in an attempt to carry out their own anti-China brainwashing scheme. In response to alleged "concerns" of this kind in Hong Kong society, Chen assured locals through RTHK that the central government only wishes for students in Hong Kong to learn more about the country, including the past 68 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China. He doesn't believe "brainwashing" will be involved.

Ironically, the "anti-national education movement" five years ago borrowed heavily from McCarthyism of the Cold War era in its bashing of "communist brainwashing", just without certain "trademarks" of that bygone era. In a different time and place such behavior would be described as "white terror", which tramples certain individual rights just as wantonly as possible. It is a favorite ploy of the separatists as well, which is one more reason why national education is absolutely necessary.

(HK Edition 10/24/2017 page9)