HONG KONG -- At a time when Beijing is upbraiding Tokyo for its depiction in history textbooks of the invasion and occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s -- and used it as a reason for excluding Japan from the United Nations Security Council -- it has exposed its own politicization of history by shutting down a publication, Bing Dian (Freezing Point), the weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily, for an article on events in the late 19th century.

It is well known that Chinese history textbooks play down the disasters that resulted from Communist Party rule since 1949, such as the widespread starvation of the late 1950s associated with the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution atrocities of the 1960s and 1970s, but those were primarily domestic political events.

The closing down of Freezing Point on Jan. 24, however, stems from an article published Jan. 11 and written by a noted historian that criticizes the official depiction of China's relations with the West in the late 19th century. The author, professor Yuan Weishi of Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, criticized a history textbook used in secondary schools in China.