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China's Historians Slam Japan's History Textbooks
Chinese historians Wednesday slammed the Japanese government for its approval of new history textbooks for middle schools, which, revised by nationalist historians, whitewash Japan's wartime atrocities against many Asian countries.
Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology approved Tuesday the use of eight new history books, despite of anger and protest in Asian countries.
Zhang Haipeng, chief of the Institute of Modern Chinese History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said the Japanese rightists took the chance of revising the textbook to gloss over its aggression and calamity suffered by many Asian countries.
"The compromise from the Japanese government to nationalists would not only severely hurt the feeling of Asian people, but also threaten the long-term interests of the Japanese people themselves," said Zhang, who is a CASS research professor.
The textbooks, which are published by a few of Japanese publishing houses, would go into use from April 2002 among middle school students.
Many Asian countries suffering from the Japanese invasion during World War II lambasted the revised history textbook while some honest Japanese people denounced the distortion of history in the textbook.
Faced with strong protests both at home and overseas against the previous textbooks, the Japanese government recommended that some 137 sections be revised due to their "controversial content."
However, the revised textbook still embodies the spirit of militarism.
The textbook describes Japan's invasion of Asian countries as an "advance." It also skims over the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which historians say at least 300,000 Chinese civilians were slaughtered, as an "incident" in which "many" Chinese were killed.
Only one of the eight books mentioned sex slaves, who were brutally looted from China, the Korean Peninsula and other Asian countries by the Japanese military forces during the war.
Zeng Jingzhong, a professor at the same CASS institute with Zhang, said the invasion history of Japan in 1930s and 40s was full of atrocities. Nevertheless, the nationalistic historians in Japan claimed existing history texts are too "masochistic" in acknowledging Japan's wrongdoing during modern times, he said.
According to historians' research, the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945 resulted in 35 million civil and military casualties and 560 billion U.S. dollars worth in losses in China, because of the war.
"The textbook more or less reflects the attitude of the Japanese government on the aggression war and the past history," Zeng said.
Xu Yong, a historian at the prestigious Beijing University, said that his 102 year-old university even underwent the colonial rule of Japanese militarists.
The Japanese forces endeavored to capture Beijing University's former President Jiang Menglin on the excuse of his anti-Japanese behavior, Xu said.
In addition, the Japanese side even asked the Chinese government to revise Chinese textbooks. In 1937, a major school building at the university was occupied by Japanese military police.
"The distorted textbook will mislead the Japanese youth," Xu said.
In a response drive, the Chinese education authorities should strengthen patriotic cultivation among young students, especially in primary and middle schools, said Liu Shuli, a researcher with China Society for the Study of the Anti-Japanese War.
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