Liberal studies (LS) textbooks used in Hong Kong public secondary schools have incurred controversy regarding perceived biased contents; however, what appears uncertain are what techniques the textbooks used to incite hostility towards the mainland of China and encourage students to participate in violent acts in Hong Kong. The present study used Michel Foucault's order of discourse theory, particularly the "division and rejection" framework regarding the power of discourse to analyze five popular LS textbooks. The findings reveal that the textbooks depict a division between the fabricated irrational image of the mainland and the rational image of Hong Kong. Specifically, the textbooks paint Chinese patriotism as irrational while encouraging the student readers to reject their Chinese identity. The textbooks also create a division between altruistic and capable civilians and passive, silent ones, with the morality of the former being connected to violence and radicalism. In this way, the textbooks produce a discourse of hostility towards the mainland and the people in the mainland while encouraging violence. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

Aim. The aim of the research is to examine how Mainland China and Chinese people are represented in the visual materials of four sets of Liberal Studies (LS) textbooks in Hong Kong. Methods. Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis, viewing language as a social practice and Teun A. van Dijk's ideological coding categories are integrated to analyse discursive representations (e.g. the embedded hidden power) in the Hong Kong Today volumes published by four influential commercial publishers: Modern, Ming Pao, Marshall, and Aristo. Results. The analysis reveals that China and mainland Chinese are negatively portrayed in visual images in four commercial LS textbooks, in which the representations concerning mainland China and mainlanders are all found ideologically biased to highlight their negative characteristics and alienness. Conclusions. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, the reasons underpinning China and its people being represented negatively in LS textbooks are traced to the British colonial government's manipulation of educational policies, which tends to distance the Hong Kong students from Chinese nationalism. Copyright © 2022 Foundation Pro Scientia Publica.