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Seoul, Beijing fuel textbook row

Activists hold anti-Japanese placards during a protest against newly approved Japanese history textbooks in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

A dispute over school textbooks escalated yesterday as Tokyo accused Beijing of whipping up anti-Japanese sentiment and the South Korean government summoned the Japanese ambassador over the issue.

Japan's decision on Tuesday to approve a textbook which both China and South Korea say glosses over Japanese wartime atrocities has opened old wounds.

The Japanese ambassador to Seoul was summoned yesterday to receive South Korea's protest over the textbook, one day after the ambassador in Beijing was called in to hear a similar protest from the Chinese government.

Koreshige Anami, Japan's envoy to Beijing, responded to the protest with robust criticism of the Chinese government.

"Anami expressed concern about recent anti-Japanese demonstrations in various cities in China," an embassy spokesman said. "He asked the Chinese authorities to take necessary measures to protect Japanese people and companies' activities in China.

"He observed that patriotic education in China may have caused some anti-Japanese feelings among young Chinese people. Anami asked the Chinese government to pay full attention to this aspect," the spokesman said.

China's state-controlled media reacted furiously, accusing Japan of not being able to face up to its past.

"One thing is for sure, and that is a country's prestige is not built on subterfuge, but its acknowledgment of the past," the China Daily said in an editorial, which called the textbook a "political provocation."

"Without a consensus on the history issue and other disputes, the Asian peoples cannot place their trust in Japan's desire to play a bigger role in world affairs," it said.

Local academics warned that the Sino-Japanese row may spill over into trade.

Some Chinese shops have stopped selling selected Japanese goods in protest, an industry official confirmed yesterday. It was not clear how many stores had stopped selling Japanese products, but one association official said the boycott campaign had begun in Shanghai and the northeastern city of Shenyang.

In recent days, crowds opposed to Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council have gathered outside Japanese-owned department stores and supermarkets in several Chinese cities.

In some instances, they have smashed windows or tried to hoist the Chinese flag.

Anami defended Japan's decision to approve the textbook, one of eight that can be used to instruct students aged 13 to 15 from April next year, saying it was a question of freedom of expression.

"Textbooks for Japanese schools are not made by the government or government organizations, but by private companies," the spokesman said, citing Anami. "In Japan we ensure freedom of speech and publication. So if draft textbooks submitted by publishing companies to the ministry of education fulfill certain criteria, they are allowed to be published."

The book avoids the word "invasion" when it refers to Japan's military occupation of other Asian countries in the first half of the 20th century.

It also refers to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre -- in which some historians say at least 300,000 Chinese civilians were slaughtered by Japanese troops -- as an "incident" in which "many" Chinese were killed.
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