Propaganda-Laden Textbooks Under the Chinese Communist Party's Rule

(Minghui.org) The age-inappropriate illustrations in children’s textbooks and picture books in mainland China have recently drawn broad criticism. For example, several social media posts revealed that many illustrations in elementary mathematics textbooks published by the People’s Education Press contain tattoos and pornography, as well as obscene content. Many parents were outraged and worried that their children have been exposed to harmful content.

Textbooks published by several other publishing houses, including Phoenix Publishing (in Jiangsu Province), Sichuan Children’s Publishing, and Tomorrow Press (Shandong Province), were found to have similar issues.

Facing massive pressure from the public on these “poisonous textbooks” and “toxic reading materials,” the Ministry of Education responded on May 30 and promised to investigate this situation.

A closer look at children’s textbooks shows that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often includes lies and hate propaganda to brainwash the young generation. By removing teachings of traditional value from children’s textbooks, the CCP has gradually pushed the communist agenda into young minds.

Lies and Hate Propaganda that Rewrite History

The CCP is notorious for distorting history. For instance, its version of the “glorious” Long March (a series of marches in which CCP armies in the south escaped to the north and west to evade the pursuit of the Chinese Nationalist Party) in the 1930s couldn’t be further from the truth. Based on interviews with survivors and villagers, scholar Sun Shuyuan documented “the forces at work during the days of the revolution – poverty, sickness, and Mao's use of terror, propaganda, and ruthless purges – have shaped modern China irrevocably” in her book The Long March: The True History of Communist China's Founding Myth.

The CCP soon met with financial difficulty in Yan’an, Shaanxi Province after the Long March. Numerous sources of evidence indicated that it financed its precarious existence by growing and selling opium. “I have discovered that profits from opium production and sales by the CCP made a substantial contribution to the economic development [in the region],” wrote scholar Chen Yung-fa in “The blooming poppy under the red sun: The Yanan Way and the opium trade.” Ironically, after comrade Zhang Side died when a kiln processing raw opium collapsed, Mao wasted no time giving a speech on September 1944 titled “Serving the People” to highly praise Zhang.

One may view this as dark humor, but incidents like this were seen throughout the CCP’s 100-year history from its establishment to the ongoing pandemic. During the Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1946, for example, the CCP focused on its own growth and hardly confronted the Japanese army. Even its propaganda material at that time was limited to stories like “tunnel warfare” and “mine warfare.” When the Japanese army was defeated by the Chinese Nationalist Party, however, Mao took credit for the victory and claimed that the communist party drove out the invaders.

The CCP continued making up lies after it took power in 1949, but on a larger scale and in a more comprehensive manner. To justify its land reform in the early 1950s of seizing land from the landlords, its imperial literati fabricated countless stories to brainwash Chinese people, including children, through textbooks.

One of the children’s books, with 5 million copies printed, was a story about Zhou Chunfu, a hardworking landlord. He was depicted as a vicious figure who coerced his workers into rising at midnight to work in the fields by mimicking a rooster’s crowing in the wee hours. Although it sounded funny, this story instilled hatred against landlords and amplified the class struggle in Chinese people’s minds, generation after generation.

Indoctrination Through Textbooks

The CCP has also been indoctrinating children by including its distorted version of history in textbooks. The textbook “revision” by the Ministry of Education since 2018 is one such example. More specifically, content was added to whitewash or even praise the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). In the meantime, religious terms such as “Jesus,” “God,” “worship,” and “sabbath” were either removed or replaced with secular words in the textbooks.

In 2020, many kindergartens across China were instructed to have young children dress in red and reenact the CCP’s revolution in seizing power from the Chinese Nationalist Party. Boys and girls waved toy knives and did mock robberies like the CCP founders did. Despite its comical setting, the communist toxins nonetheless passed onto the young generations.

Also in textbooks were the hate propaganda of staged Self-Immolation Incident that took place at Tiananmen Square on January 23, 2001, the eve of the Chinese New Year. Several people who claimed to be Falun Dafa practitioners set themselves on fire. The terrifying scene shocked the entire country and instigated hatred towards Falun Dafa, a meditation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Overwhelming evidence indicated that none of the self-immolators practiced Falun Dafa. However, the CCP has used this staged incident to defame Falun Dafa through extensive media coverage, textbooks, literature, and entertainment channels.

Flames of the False Fire Continue

Detailed analysis of the self-immolation video broadcast by the state-owned TV stations showed many loopholes. For example, fire extinguishers were readily available in Tiananmen Square, which was not possible since such equipment was rarely carried by patrolling police. In addition, the footage included long shots, medium, and close-ups, which seemed to come from prepared profession television crews. The CCP claimed the footage was from CNN, which denied that claim since its reporters were stopped from videotaping and were detained.

Another loophole involved Wang Jindong, one of the self-immolators. His clothing and face were burnt, but his hair and a sprite bottle filled with gasoline in between his legs – both highly inflammable – were totally fine. Furthermore, Liu Chunlin, another self-immolator, was shown to be bludgeoned to death with a heavy object by a man at the site instead being burnt to death. A reporter from Washington Post also found that she was a bar girl and no one saw her practicing Falun Dafa.

Liu’s daughter, 12-year-old Liu Siying, was another self-immolator. The little girl underwent surgery to cut open her throat and could not breathe on her own or talk. Yet she was interviewed four days after her operation and was shown to be able to talk in a loud and clear voice. She even sang a song, which would be medically impossible. She was pronounced dead two months later.

Given evidence such as this, International Education Development stated in a United Nations conference in August 2001 that “we have obtained a video of that incident that in our view proves that this event was staged by the government. We have copies of that video available for distribution.” Furthermore, it referred to this incident as part of the state terrorism created by the CCP. Chinese delegates at the conference did not respond to this accusation.

False Fire: China’s Tragic New Standard in State Deception, a documentary that analyzes the self-immolation hoax, won a Certificate of Honorable Mention at the 51st Columbus International Film & Video Festival. Twenty-one years have passed since the incident, but the false fire still smolders to harm people.