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The Ministry of Education is introducing new textbooks for morality and law, which will give more space to Xi Jinping Thought and emphasise traditional Chinese culture and national security. Photo: CCTV

New Chinese textbooks play up national security, Xi Jinping Thought and Vietnam, India wars

New books on Chinese language, history, as well as morality and law to be handed out to junior and primary students at start of autumn semester

New Chinese school textbooks will give more space to national security and traditional culture in Beijing’s latest move to step up ideological propaganda and control.

Primary and junior high school students starting the autumn semester next week will be handed the new textbooks on Chinese language, history, as well as morality and law, state broadcaster CCTV said on Tuesday.

Morality and law was known until 2016 as ideology and politics. It is a mandatory subject that promotes the ideology of the ruling Communist Party.
Topics highlighted in the new textbooks include the president’s political philosophy, Xi Jinping Thought. There will also be an emphasis on traditional Chinese culture and national security, according to a Ministry of Education official cited in the report.

All Chinese nationals receive nine years of compulsory education, six in primary school and the rest in junior high. The new textbooks will initially be used in the first and seventh grades, and will be extended to all nine grades within three years, according to CCTV.

The new morality and law textbook would introduce the “main content and historical status” of Xi Jinping Thought, the report said.

Officially known as “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, Xi’s political philosophy was enshrined in China’s constitution in 2018.

However, it has expanded in recent years to include seven aspects, covering his instructions on economic, diplomatic, military and environmental matters, as well as the law, propaganda and party discipline.

China is introducing new history textbooks for schoolchildren. Photo: CCTV

Earlier this year, the study of these ideas was made a top priority for all party organisations across the country, with orders to hold regular meetings to study Xi’s speeches and directives.

The new history textbooks will include the brief but bloody border war in 1962 between China and India, which ended with India’s defeat after four weeks.

China and India are still at odds over their ill-defined Himalayan border, involving more than 120,000 sq km (46,300 square miles) of disputed territory. Both countries maintain a significant military presence in the border areas, and were involved in another deadly conflict in June 2020.

The 1979 China-Vietnam conflict will also feature in the new history books. Some 300,000 Chinese troops entered Vietnam to prevent Hanoi from overthrowing the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

The conflict caused tens of thousands of casualties on both sides in what Beijing called a “self-defence war against Vietnam”.

However it has long been silent on the issue, including not organising public commemorations of its 40th anniversary in 2019 and trying to prevent veterans from paying tribute.

Vietnam seeks Chinese investment and technical support, but the 1979 war and territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea are potential hurdles to bilateral ties.

The Ministry of Education official quoted in the CCTV report said the new content would “allow students to deeply understand that national security is a top priority and that everyone has a responsibility to safeguard it”.

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Students perform ‘battle dance’ during Chinese lesson

Students perform ‘battle dance’ during Chinese lesson
Students will also have to learn what it means to “forge a sense of community for the Chinese nation” – a concept Xi put forward in 2014 to promote ethnic integration.

While more than 90 per cent of Chinese nationals are of Han ethnicity, the country is also home to 55 ethnic minority groups.

Meanwhile, the Chinese language textbooks will include more ancient Chinese literature and stories about the revolutionary years before the party won the civil war in 1949, establishing the People’s Republic.

China’s technological development will also be highlighted in the books, with articles on the late Nan Rendong, the chief scientist of southern China’s Five-hundred-metre Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) – the world’s largest radio telescope.
The textbooks will also feature an introduction to China’s advanced deep-sea research submersible Jiaolong and letters to students from Chinese astronauts.

The new textbooks took two years to compile and were used by more than 100,000 students in over 550 schools before being launched nationwide, CCTV said.

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