In recent years, the Chinese government has launched a national campaign to comprehensively revise history textbook in order to "fully implant socialist core values into youngsters" and ensure their familiarity and identification with "socialism with Chinese characteristics," specifically. Based on in-depth field interviews with teachers and students in a sample of senior high schools in Beijing, this article examines what impact this textbook reform has had on students' identity and values. We find that the ideological content and national discourse in the new textbook has been significantly strengthened compared to the pre-2003 versions. The changes have significantly reinforced positive views of the "China model," characterized by the country's splendid cultural and historical tradition and centralized governance, and increased nationalist and anti-Western sentiment among the Chinese younger generation. The implications of these findings are considered in the light of Lee's (Managing Chineseness: identity and ethnic management in Singapore. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017) theory of identity grafting and the impact of state intervention on Chinese identities.