Removal of classic Chinese literature segment depicting failed uprising from textbook is “an academic adjustment”: editor in chief

Global Times:

Students read new version of Chinese textbooks at Kangzhuang Center Primary School in Handan, North China’s Hebei Province. Photo: VCG

The removal of classic Chinese writing that depicts an uprising movement in the late Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC) from middle school textbook is “a purely academic adjustment,” a chief editor of the textbook said on Monday.

Wen Rumin, the editor in chief for the textbook, told the media that such content adjustment is nothing but for academic purpose, and there is no need for further explanation, as there is not any background or context taken into consideration for such decision.

Wen added that the new textbook has yet to be published.

Hereditary Houses of Chen She, a fragment of the some 2,000-year-old Sima Qian’s classic Records of the Grand Historian, better known as Shiji, has been removed from the national unified middle school textbook on Chinese language and literature for unknown reasons, netizens on Chinese twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo exposed recently, Chengdu-based Red Star news reported on Monday.

The national unified Chinese language and literature textbook in question refers to the one complied by the Ministry of Education, and published by People’s Education Press, the report said.