Japan yesterday rebuffed neighboring countries’ protests over newly approved textbooks after complaints about references to disputed territory and their bitter shared history.
The Japanese Ministry of Education announced on Monday that all 18 new social studies textbooks for use in junior-high schools assert Japanese ownership of two separate island groups at the center of disputes with China and South Korea.
New school books also swap the word “massacre” when referring to the mass slaughter of Chinese civilians in Nanjing in 1937, preferring the term “incident.”
The textbook row surfaces regularly in the three-way argument over events in the first half of the 20th century, when Japan invaded and occupied large tracts of Asia.
BAD TIMING
However, it has come at a particularly sensitive time, as the region readies to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II and with a rising tide of nationalism in all three countries.
Immediately after Monday’s announcement, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koro Bessho to protest over the textbooks.
‘ANOTHER PROVOCATION’
“The Japanese government carried out another provocation by approving school textbooks that strengthen unfair claims over our territory,” Seoul’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Tokyo and Seoul are at odds over the sovereignty of a pair of sparsely inhabited rocks in waters between them, administered by Seoul as Dokdo, but claimed as Takeshima in Japan.
“This clearly shows that the Japanese government seeks to inculcate the distorted views on history and territory into the minds of the young generation and tries to repeat the wrongs it committed in the past,” it said.
In Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga flatly rejected those claims.
“Our country’s textbook screening is carried out impartially and neutrally, based on professional and academic deliberations,” Suga told a news conference.
“Since our country’s stance on Takeshima and history recognition have been consistent, we responded to [South Korea] by saying we cannot accept their protest,” Japan’s top government spokesman said.
Xinhua news agency said historical revisionism was laid bare in the textbooks, revised “in line with the country’s increasingly right-leaning politics” under the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Xinhua said that some textbooks stated that “captives and civilians were involved in” the Nanjing Massacre. It said this contrasted with earlier textbooks that said the Imperial Japanese Army “killed many captives and civilians.”
A Japanese education ministry official confirmed that one of the new history textbooks did not refer to the mass killing in Nanjing, while “many others have described it as an incident, not a massacre.”
China says 300,000 civilians and soldiers died in a spree of killing, rape and destruction in the six weeks after the Japanese military entered the then-capital on Dec. 13, 1937.
While some foreign academics put the number of deaths lower, no mainstream-respected historians dispute that there was a massacre.
Separately yesterday, Japan issued its annual “blue book” on foreign policies, saying: “The starting point of Japan’s coherent path as a peaceful nation is our pledge not to fight a war again and keep peace based on our deep remorse over the past war.”
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was