High school textbook eulogizing Japan's war of aggression gets official approval

A high school history textbook, which glosses over Japan's war of aggression against Asian countries, has been approved by the government for use from April 2003.

The president of the textbook's publisher, Meiseisha, Inc. is vice chair of the Japan Conference, which advocates the "revision" of the Constitution. He is also a supporter of the like-minded Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, a group that desperately promoted history and civics textbooks for junior high schools.

Meiseisha's textbook falsely describes Japan's aggression against and colonial rule over Asian nations, saying, "Wishing to help neighboring Asian nations achieve modernization and independence, Japan defeated China (in the 1894-95 Sino-Japan War) and pushed it into accepting Korea's independence."

The textbook virtually understates the Nanking Massacre by just saying, "many non-combatants were victimized." It mentioned nothing about "comfort women" who were forced to serve the Japanese army as sex slaves.

The Children and Textbook Japan Network 21, a citizens organization, called a press conference on April 9 to publish its criticism of the textbook.

Secretary General Tawara Yoshifumi of the Network pointed out that the textbook misrepresents Japan's 1910 annexation of Korea as a merger of two nations on an equal footing, and that it calls the Pacific War the "Greater East Asia War," a clear distortion to describe the war of aggression as a war for Asian liberation.

The textbook passed the screening after modifying 88 points in the original text which the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology disapproved. (end)