Yul Kwon:
Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, students are protesting against a plan to modify the curriculum. China seems to feel young people there aren't patriotic enough. So it's gotten the local Hong Kong government to try to introduce what's being called "a national education system". Thousands of students boycotted classes and staged a sit-in at the library at Hong Kong's Chinese University.

Samuel Li:
We are organizing the class boycott because the government wants to push the national education curriculum which we worry that this curriculum will control our thought, our generation and to harm their freedom of thought.

Vincent Ip:
This is a political system that affects the future of the whole Hong Kong. If we let them push national education forward, this will directly affect future children and youth's assessments on 'one country two system' and our independent system. It will have a direct impact. This is a rather important issue.

Yul Kwon:
The territory's government has already backed away from making the curriculum compulsory in public schools after a huge demonstration last weekend. Many Hong Kong people say that the government wants to brainwash young people and gloss over aspects of the communist party's rule on the mainland. They want the whole idea dropped. Some observers believe Beijing will insist that Hong Kong needs patriotic education.