China's Exam Reforms Could Fuel Fake History, Scholar Warns

China's high school students may soon skip history on the national Gaokao exam, and a leading education scholar says that's a dangerous trend. Liu Linhai, dean of history at Beijing Normal University, warned in a state-backed paper that pushing history to the margins weakens "historical, cultural, ethnic and national identity." He is urging policymakers to act before the subject becomes irrelevant to most students.

The warning comes as Beijing intensifies its fight against "historical nihilism" – a term used to describe views that contradict the official Communist Party line on history. Authorities are especially worried about pseudo-history, including viral claims that Ancient Greece never existed. Last week, a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences newspaper ran two front-page pieces calling pseudo-history a "new variant" of this dangerous thinking.

For ordinary Chinese students, this means the exam-driven education system may no longer reward knowing your own country's past. History was already a tough sell next to math and science; now it's becoming optional. Liu's concern is that a generation raised without solid historical training will have no immune system against made-up stories, conspiracy theories, or political narratives that twist the facts to serve other agendas.

Internationally, this matters too. China and the West often clash over competing historical claims, from World War II memory to territorial disputes. If young people in China stop learning rigorous, evidence-based history, that gap could widen – making it harder to find common ground and easier for propaganda to fill the void.