Beijing yesterday denounced Taipei's attempt to promote "Taiwan independence" by revising the island's high-school history textbooks.

On instructions from Taiwan's "ministry of education", terms like "our country," "this country" and "the mainland" in the textbooks have been changed to "China".

"We've noticed the developments. The political motive behind it is to transform the island's education into an ideological tool for 'Taiwan independence'," Yang Yi, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, told a regular briefing.