The Hong Kong government has backed down from a plan to force its schools to promote patriotism following months of protests that culminated in more than 100,000 people gathering outside government offices on Friday.
Leung Chun-ying, the chief executive of Hong Kong, who took office in March, tried to distance himself from the arrangement for all schools to adopt “moral and national education, a new subject, by 2015.
Hong Kong’s government would no longer impose a deadline for schools to teach the subject within his five-year term, he said. However, he did not go as far as a full withdrawal of the subject, saying it would be up to each school to decide whether to teach it in class.