Why Some Textbooks Now Claim Hong Kong ‘Was Never a Colony’ in 2026?

In 2026, new history textbooks rolled out in Hong Kong schools began teaching something that stunned many observers: Hong Kong, they said, was never a British colony. The claim appeared in at least four sets of textbooks approved for use in Hong Kong secondary schools starting in the 2022-2023 academic year. For decades, the standard narrative both inside and outside Hong Kong treated the territory as a crown colony of the British Empire from 1842 until the 1997 handover. Understanding why some textbooks now claim Hong Kong “was never a colony” requires unpacking a web of historical treaties, legal arguments, and political motivations that span more than 180 years.

The shift is not just about words on a page. It reflects a broader transformation in how Hong Kong’s history is taught, understood, and politically framed in 2026. This article breaks down the historical facts, the legal reasoning behind China’s position, and the controversy that has drawn international attention.

What the Textbook Changes Actually Say?

The revised textbooks, introduced under Hong Kong’s updated citizenship and history curriculum, explicitly state that Hong Kong was never a British colony. Instead, the materials describe the territory as being under “British occupation” or “forced occupation” rather than colonial administration. The textbooks teach that China never recognized the treaties that ceded Hong Kong to Britain and that sovereignty always remained with China.

This framing aligns with the official position of the Hong Kong Education Bureau (EDB), which published a detailed defense of the approach in August 2022. The EDB argued that using the term “colony” to describe Hong Kong’s status is “inappropriate” because it implies Britain held legitimate sovereignty over the territory. The bureau insisted the change does not deny the history of British occupation but rather corrects a terminology error.

Critics, however, see it differently. Many historians, journalists, and former Hong Kong residents argue the change represents a deliberate political effort to reshape collective memory. They point out that for 155 years, Hong Kong functioned in every practical sense as a British colony, with a British-appointed governor, British laws, and British military protection. The word “colony” was not a mislabel applied by accident. It appeared on maps, in British government documents, in international treaties, and in the United Nations’ own records for decades.

Hong Kong’s Colonial History: The Three Unequal Treaties

To understand the debate, we need to go back to the events that brought Hong Kong under British control in the first place. Three treaties, all signed after Chinese military defeats, form the backbone of this history.

The first was the Treaty of Nanking (also spelled Nanjing), signed on August 29, 1842, at the end of the First Opium War. Britain had fought China over its attempts to suppress the opium trade, and the resulting treaty forced the Qing dynasty to cede Hong Kong Island to Britain in perpetuity. This was the treaty that first established a British foothold in the region.

The second treaty was the Convention of Beijing (also called the Beijing Convention), signed on October 24, 1860, following the Second Opium War. Under this agreement, China ceded the Kowloon Peninsula south of Boundary Street to Britain, again in perpetuity. This expanded the British territory on the Chinese mainland directly opposite Hong Kong Island.

The third and most consequential treaty was the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory, signed on June 9, 1898. This agreement leased the New Territories, a much larger area north of Kowloon, to Britain for 99 years. It was this 99-year lease that ultimately created the ticking clock leading to the 1997 handover, since the New Territories comprised roughly 86 percent of Hong Kong’s total land area and could not practically be separated from the rest.

China has always maintained that all three treaties were “unequal treaties” imposed through military force and coercion. The Chinese government argues that these treaties were never valid under international law because they were extracted under duress. This is the legal foundation for the claim that Hong Kong was never truly ceded and was therefore never a legitimate colony.

China’s Legal Argument: Sovereignty vs Colonial Rule

The distinction China draws is between sovereignty and administrative control. Under this framework, Britain exercised de facto administrative control over Hong Kong from 1842 to 1997, but China never transferred sovereignty. Because the treaties were forced upon a weakened Qing dynasty through military aggression, China considers them null and void from the outset.

This means, in Beijing’s view, Hong Kong was always Chinese territory under foreign occupation. The British governed, policed, and administered the territory, but they never possessed legitimate sovereign title. This is why the new textbooks use terms like “occupied territory” rather than “colony.” The argument is not that Britain was absent from Hong Kong. It is that Britain’s presence was illegitimate rather than sovereign.

Many international legal scholars acknowledge the complexity of this position. The concept of unequal treaties was not widely recognized in international law during the nineteenth century, when these agreements were signed. However, the post-World War II decolonization movement and the establishment of the United Nations created new frameworks for evaluating colonial arrangements. China’s argument draws on these later developments to retroactively challenge the legitimacy of the original treaties.

The 1972 UN Resolution and Its Role in the Debate

A pivotal moment in this narrative came in 1972, when the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2908. This resolution dealt with the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. Importantly, it removed Hong Kong and Macau from the UN’s list of colonial territories subject to decolonization.

China, which had taken its seat at the UN in 1971 after replacing the Republic of China (Taiwan), argued that Hong Kong and Macau were not colonies in the traditional sense. They were territories occupied by foreign powers that would eventually be returned to China through negotiation. The UN General Assembly accepted this position, effectively removing the obligation for Britain to grant Hong Kong independence through the standard decolonization process.

This 1972 resolution is one of the strongest cards in the argument that Hong Kong was never a colony. Proponents of the textbook change point to it as definitive international recognition that Hong Kong did not fit the colonial paradigm. Critics counter that the resolution was a political compromise shaped by Cold War geopolitics, not a genuine legal assessment of Hong Kong’s status. They note that Britain itself never formally agreed that Hong Kong was not a colony, even though it accepted the resolution’s practical implications.

Regardless of how one interprets the resolution, it remains a fact that after 1972, the UN no longer classified Hong Kong as a non-self-governing territory requiring decolonization. This gave China a durable legal reference point that the current textbooks now emphasize heavily.

The 1997 Handover and ‘One Country, Two Systems’

The 99-year lease on the New Territories was set to expire on June 30, 1997. By the early 1980s, it became clear that Britain and China needed to negotiate the territory’s future. The result was the Sino-British Joint Declaration, signed on December 19, 1984, in which Britain agreed to return all of Hong Kong, not just the leased New Territories, to China.

The handover took place on July 1, 1997, marking the end of 155 years of British administration. Under the framework known as “one country, two systems,” Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the People’s Republic of China. The arrangement, codified in the Basic Law (Hong Kong’s mini-constitution), guaranteed the territory a high degree of autonomy for 50 years, until at least 2047.

This included protections for Hong Kong’s capitalist economic system, independent judiciary, civil liberties, and way of life that had developed under British rule. The Basic Law promised Hong Kong residents rights that did not exist in mainland China, including freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and an independent legal system based on English common law.

The handover itself was a carefully negotiated compromise. Britain never formally conceded China’s argument that the original treaties were void. Instead, the Joint Declaration was framed as a pragmatic transfer of sovereignty. China, for its part, treated the return as a restoration of sovereignty it had never legally lost. Both sides agreed to a diplomatic ambiguity that allowed the transfer to proceed without resolving the underlying legal dispute.

Political Motivations Behind the Narrative Shift

The textbook changes did not happen in a political vacuum. They arrived in the aftermath of the massive 2019 pro-democracy protests that swept through Hong Kong, followed by the imposition of the National Security Law in June 2020. That law criminalized acts of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces, dramatically curtailing political dissent.

In this context, the educational reforms are widely seen as part of a broader effort to cultivate what Beijing calls “patriotic education.” The goal is to foster a stronger Chinese national identity among Hong Kong’s youth, many of whom grew up with a distinct Hong Kong identity shaped by the territory’s colonial history and unique civic culture.

The new curriculum requirements are extensive. They include changes to history, geography, and citizenship education that emphasize China’s sovereignty claims and frame Hong Kong as an inalienable part of the Chinese nation. Teachers are required to deliver this content, and schools are subject to inspection to ensure compliance. Some educators have expressed concern about the narrowing of academic freedom and the pressure to present contested historical interpretations as settled fact.

Forum discussions on Reddit and other platforms reveal deep anxiety among many Hong Kong residents and members of the diaspora. They worry that the narrative shift is designed to erase the lived experience of colonial-era Hong Kong and to weaken arguments for the autonomy that was promised under “one country, two systems.” Others note the irony of China emphasizing the illegitimacy of foreign-imposed treaties while simultaneously tightening its own political control over the territory.

International observers have also weighed in. The New York Times, Northeastern University political analysts, and various human rights organizations have described the textbook changes as part of a systematic effort to bring Hong Kong’s educational and cultural institutions into alignment with mainland Chinese narratives. Critics argue that describing Hong Kong as “never a colony” obscures the very real power dynamics that shaped the territory for over a century.

FAQs

Why This Debate Matters Beyond the Classroom

The question of whether some textbooks now claim Hong Kong “was never a colony” might seem like a semantic or academic dispute. But the stakes are far higher than terminology. History shapes identity, and identity shapes political claims. If Hong Kong was never a colony, the argument for a distinct Hong Kong identity rooted in colonial-era civic traditions becomes harder to sustain.

The debate also touches on fundamental questions about how history is written and who gets to write it. Every country shapes its national narrative to some degree. The question is where legitimate historical revision ends and political manipulation begins. In Hong Kong’s case, the line is especially blurry because the legal arguments China advances are not baseless. The treaties were indeed imposed through military force, and the UN did remove Hong Kong from its colonial list in 1972.

At the same time, the lived reality of colonial Hong Kong cannot be legislated away. Millions of people grew up under a system that was, in practice, a British colonial administration. They lived under British common law, attended schools modeled on the British system, and developed a civic culture that blended Chinese traditions with British-influenced institutions. That experience is part of Hong Kong’s history regardless of what any textbook says about sovereignty.

The international community continues to watch closely. Academic institutions, human rights organizations, and foreign governments have all expressed varying degrees of concern about the trajectory of educational reform in Hong Kong. The way this controversy is resolved, or not resolved, will likely influence how other contested colonial histories are debated in the years to come.

Conclusion

The reason why some textbooks now claim Hong Kong “was never a colony” comes down to a convergence of legal argument, historical reinterpretation, and political strategy. China’s position rests on the claim that the three unequal treaties were invalid, that sovereignty never legitimately left China, and that the 1972 UN resolution confirmed this view internationally.

These arguments have a basis in real historical and legal developments. But they also serve a clear political purpose in the current era of national security and patriotic education. By reframing Hong Kong’s colonial past as a period of foreign occupation rather than legitimate colonial rule, the new curriculum supports Beijing’s broader goal of integrating Hong Kong more tightly into the Chinese national narrative.

For anyone trying to understand Hong Kong in 2026, the key is to hold both perspectives simultaneously. The legal arguments about sovereignty and unequal treaties deserve serious consideration. So do the very real experiences of the millions of people who lived under what was, in all but the contested legal terminology, a British colonial system for 155 years.

The story of Hong Kong’s textbooks is ultimately about more than history. It is about memory, identity, and the ongoing negotiation between past and present in one of the world’s most politically complex cities.