TOKYO, April 5: Japan approved a new edition of a textbook on Tuesday that critics say whitewashes Japan’s militaristic past, drawing protests from China and South Korea and further fraying ties with the two Asian neighbours.
The Ministry of Education first approved the book, written by nationalist scholars for junior high schools, in 2001 in the face of strong protests from Japan’s two Asian neighbours.
But hardly any local school boards adopted the book, which critics lambasted for playing down the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, ignoring the sexual slavery of women for Japanese soldiers, and depicting Japanese actions as aimed at liberating other Asian countries.
This time, the textbook’s proponents hope a change in the national mood and backing from ruling party lawmakers will persuade more school boards to adopt the new edition.
But 15 Japanese civic groups opposed to the textbook argued otherwise.
“The dangerous contents filling the textbook as a whole have not changed in any essential way. There are even parts that have been revised for the worse,” the groups said in a statement.
DELETED: The term “comfort women”, a euphemism for wartime sex slaves, disappeared from all history texts approved in the latest round of screenings, Japan’s Kyodo news agency said.
But the ministry did tell the authors to amend some accounts that had glossed over Japan’s colonization of the Korean Peninsula and the Nanjing Massacre, Kyodo said.
China’s foreign ministry summoned Japanese Ambassador Koreshige Anami to protest against Japan’s approval of the textbook, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
Xinhua quoted foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang as expressing “indignation” over the issue, and saying the textbook “confuses right and wrong, confounds black and white and disregards several solemn representations from China”.
South Korea, which has been feuding with Japan of late over conflicting claims to remote islands that stirred up memories of the colonial past with its neighbour, was also unhappy.
“We are deeply concerned about whether future generations can cooperate, and try to coexist through education of distorted history,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyung told reporters in Seoul.
“We have repeatedly urged Japan to take action to fix this.”
MASOCHISTIC HISTORY: Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters he hoped the textbook feud would not affect other ties with South Korea. But relations have deteriorated since a long-standing territorial dispute over two tiny islands, called Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in Korea, flared up recently.
Seoul was also upset that a civics textbook approved on Tuesday reiterated Japan’s claim to the islands. Many South Koreans feel Japan has not sincerely repented for its harsh 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean peninsula.
Some 50 South Korean protesters, mostly former commandos, scuffled with policemen outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul.
Chanting “Japan, stop distorting history,” they burnt an effigy of Japanese ambassador Toshiyuki Takano while police stopped a 56-year-old man from stabbing himself in protest. The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform criticizes other texts for presenting a “masochistic” view of Japanese history which it says robs students of pride in their country.—Reuters
