Chinese Ambassador Voices Concern on Approval of Controversial Textbook"Although some revisions were made in the textbook, its essence of denial and beautification of Japan's past aggression is not changed," Chen told reporters following the announcement made by the Japanese government of its screening results of eight history textbooks to be used as part of the curriculum at junior high schools next year. "We are shocked and deeply regret on the approval of the history textbook," Chen said, adding that the textbook shows no remorse at all over the great sufferings inflicted upon Asian people before and during the World War II by the Japanese aggressors. Chen noted that Japanese government holds unshakable responsibility in the approval of history-distorting textbook. To correctly deal with the past history is an important political foundation for the development of Sino-Japanese relationship, Chen said, adding that Japanese government's approval of the history textbook will pose negative impacts on the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties. Chen said that the textbook deeply hurts the feeling of peoples in Japan's neighboring Asian countries. He expressed the hope that the Japanese government should fully respect its recognition of history shown in a 1995 special statement made by then Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama. If the textbook is published and used by Japanese junior high schools, Japanese students would misunderstand history, thus bringing about an uncertainty in Japan's future development, the Chinese ambassador stressed. The textbook was compiled by a group of Japanese nationalistic academics and to be published by Fuso Publishing Inc. The group, called the "Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform," claims current books are biased against Japan and full of self- denigration. Under pressure both at home and abroad, the Japanese government demanded the group make a total of 137 changes to the too apparent narration of beautification on aggressions. Yet, it can be easily found that there is no change to the textbook's essence of history-distorting and beautification on Japan's past military aggressions. The approved textbook, for instance, failed to mention the Nanjing Massacre as a historical fact, in which over 300,000 Chinese civilians and unarmed soldiers were slaughtered by Japanese aggressors in 1937. It instead mentioned the killing in the part of Far East Tribune Trial and tries to obliterate it, saying that "many Chinese civilians are massacred in Nanjing ... but the data have many questionable points and the controversies on that continue to nowadays." |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |
