Angry Chinese Blogger offers some analysis on China’s recent seizure of textbooks destined for a Japanese international school in Beijing suggesting, among other things, that the issue may not have been Taiwan/ More disturbing are the suggestions that international schools are being pressured to teach Communist Party propaganda.:

Though international schools in China often purport themselves to be independent of the curriculum restrictions placed on state and private schools for native Chinese, this latest incident has served to highlight some of the fears held by ex-patriot raising children in China, and to raised a number of awkward questions about the integrity of the education given by international schools in the country.
While most international schools around the world exist to provide native language education, and to allow children to continue their education using a curriculum that is similar to that in their native countries, many ex patriot families living in China, particularly those from Japan and western countries, also opt to send their children to international schools to ensure that they are taught to an internationally recognized standard for accuracy using material that is not subject to the ‘blank spaces’ and ‘manipulated’ versions of events that are found in ordinary Chinese schools.

One small quibble… expatriate not ex-patriot. I’ve been outside of Canada for close to a decade. While I am an expat, I remain a patriot.

Richard Willmsen has another great essay touching on education in China, although relating to domestic schools. Expats would not want their children taught in this fashion:

..when I told my students about the Guardian’s special week of articles on China, despite the fact that they had never heard of the Guardian before, and although the Guardian site is not in any way blocked in China, none of them was prepared to take a look. Of course they claimed that they would find the language too daunting, but I think that this was a pretty poor excuse for an excuse. I think that one reason is that they are genuinely apprehensive of the possible consequences of being seen to visit a non-Chinese website. But I think the main reason is that they feel they might encounter information which contradicts what the Party has told them about China; and if they do, they will have to take the time and effort to systematically disregard each and every word of it.