Erm. You've probably already been skewered for this, but a variant of that question would be absolutely standard in the Scottish Higher (equivalent to A/S level in England) History paper and probably the one that almost everyone prepares for to some degree.
The whole point of studying history in school is to move students away from the overly simplistic "this guy good, this guy bad" ideas and get them to analyse under lying reasons.
From my own school experience the marking was never dependent on which side of the argument you were, but on how much knowledge you drew upon to make your argument. The conclusion wasn't important, just the way you came to it. I loved these kind of open ended questions during my time in school, because there was no wrong answer.
Your "a variant" point is pretty critical to the overall question.
Although in Scotland you'd get sacked for suggesting in a history exam that there might have been positives to the Tory government down south (not that I can think of many), so let's put them to the side for now.
The rights and wrongs of the question itself is almost besides the point I think, what really matters is the fact the CCP saw this as an opening to impose patriotic education on HK. To turn HKers into mindless robots. This is their first step.
Last edited by Coolboy; 17-05-2020 at 09:43 AM.