The Japanese history textbooks controversy is a long-running controversy about how historical events are presented in official Japanese school textbooks. The controversy deals with how Japan's aggression in the Sino-Japanese War and in World War II are portrayed, particularly in Japan.

In 2005, the debate boiled over into multinational public protest demonstrations with the publishing of an official Japanese textbook that critics claim downplays or "whitewashes" the nature of Japan's military attacks.

The textbook was created by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, a conservative Japanese organization. It refers to the Nanjing Massacre as a mere "incident," de-emphasizes the subject of the Chinese comfort women, and avoids the contemporary issues surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni shrine in honor of dead Japanese soldiers, where the enshrined include the names of a number of convicted and executed war criminals. The textbook has been publicly denounced by Japan's leading teachers' union and is being used by 18 of the nation's 11,102 junior high schools. [1]

Critics in several countries, including the People's Republic of China (mainland China), the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) claim that the textbooks sanitize their reporting of the wartime event. These countries claim that it is not historically justifiable to glorify Japanese wartime activities, or to omit alleged atrocities. The contemporary Japanese government has been criticised by Malaysia, Singapore and Germany, as well as organisations such as the United Nations. The textbook controversy plays a role in continuing demands by Asian nations that the Japanese government apologize for wartime atrocities.

The Japanese government has demanded an apology from China for the protests, claiming that the protests are primarily motivated by hostile or racist anti-Japanese sentiment. Japan has never given an offical apology for starting the wars which cost over 20 million Chinese lives alone, though at times apologies by officials have been important diplomatic steps in China-Japan relations.

Since the beginning of protests the controversy has grown to include wider Japan-related issues like the bid by Japan for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and land disputes. In the PRC, several Japanese-owned shops and malls have been attacked and vandalized by angry protesters. Several Japanese nationals residing in China have been reported as injured.

To date this controversy has focused on how textbooks in Japan are dealing with Japan's wartime aggression. How Japan's aggression is portrayed in China and other countries that were subject to it is not central to the controversy. However, this broader context which treats the subject in Japan and China may become more relevant if Japan presses its offer to China of a joint commission to review textbooks in both countries.

People's Republic of China (mainland China)

In March 2005, demonstrations broke out in several cities in the People's Republic of China, including Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Shenyang, Ningbo, Harbin, Chengdu, Luoyang, Qingdao, Changsha, Hefei, Beijing, Wuhan, Fuzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong. In some cases, demonstrators attacked and damaged Japanese embassies, consulates, supermarkets, restaurants (mostly franchise businesses owned by Chinese) as well as people, prompting the Japanese government to demand an apology and compensation for damages.

The official PRC attitude towards the demonstrations is considered by foreign observers as enigmatic. On the one hand, the government allowed the demonstrations to occur in the first place. While the PRC policed the protests, some observers believe that measures to rein in the violence and property damage were deliberately ineffective. However, the PRC has only indirectly reported the current protests in state owned media, holding back its ability to expose the events to a national audience. State-owned media in the PRC has nevertheless maintained extensive coverage of anti-Japanese demonstrations in South Korea, as well as distant but related events, such as the European commemoration of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Internet censorship has been extended to subjects related to the protests. Many universities prohibited students from coming onto or leaving the campus. Mass transit systems in close proximity to protest rally points were shut down. However, this policy was contradicted in several cities, including Beijing, where city buses were used by the municipal authorities to ferry students into the protests. Students at Tsinghua and Peking Universities also reported receiving phone calls from university authority encouraging them to demonstrate.

PRC police tactics are perceived to be similar to those utilized when demonstrations were held outside the American embassy in Beijing after NATO forces accidentally bombed the PRC embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in May 1999.

The slogan "patriotism is not a sin" (爱国无罪 àiguó wúzuì: literally translated, "it is not a crime to be patriotic") is popular, albeit in a sarcastic sense, among the PRC protesters. This slogan is used to describe a justification of violence against Japanese individuals, on the basis of reciprocating Japanese attrocities in China during the Second World War.

Political observers on the US National Public Radio have argued that the controversy is being allowed by the PRC government partly in order to further a multitude of political goals[2]. American news broadcasters CNN and Time Magazine have also pointed out that historical inaccuracies are not limited to Japanese textbooks, but that Chinese government-made textbooks are equally rife with omissions and non-neutral point of view [3]. Cases of questioned text include the Great Leap Forward which caused 30 million Chinese deaths ("the People suffered major losses"), China's 1979 invasion of Vietnam, and the Cultural Revolution ("Lots of appalling events happened"). Tibet is a subject given scant mention except by foreign press[4], and Xinjiang remains detached to the ongoing controversy.

Japanese response to Chinese protests

In Japan, no large-scale anti-PRC rallies or demonstrations have taken place, although a handful of far-right wing protestors demonstrated outside PRC consulates. Nevertheless, more and more people canceled their travel plans to China, and some doubt was raised about the 2008 Summer Olympics, scheduled to be held in Beijing.

The Japanese foreign minister visited Beijing hastily to meet his counterpart on April 17. Xinhua News Agency reported that in the meeting held in Beijing between PRC and Japanese foreign ministers, the Japanese minister offered an apology for Japan's wrongdoings during World War II. However, Xinhua omitted in its report that in this meeting the Japanese negotiators demanded an apology and compensation for damage against Japanese property and people. That demand was rejected by Li Zhaoxing, Chinese foreign minister.

However,the Japanese foreign ministry officially denied the above news from the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency. The news agency reports little about the on-going patriotic demonstrations in major Chinese cities.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange recorded a sharp plunge on Monday, April 18, and correlations between the demonstrations and Sino-Japanese economic ties are raised in the financial industry.

Japanese Premier Junichiro Koizumi is to meet Hu Jintao at an international conference held in Indonesia on April 22.

Republic of China (Taiwan)

Although in the past the government of the Republic of China on Taiwan has been severely critical of the content of Japanese history textbooks, in the wave of 2005 revisions of the textbooks, the ROC has, for the most part, been much quieter than the PRC. This is indicative of the relatively high level of tension in the relationship between the PRC and the ROC and the comparatively good relations between the ROC and Japan. Earlier in 2005, Japan and the United States had issued a joint declaration calling for a "peaceful solution" to the Taiwan issue, a declaration which angered the PRC, which protested that this declaration constituted interference in "internal affairs."

Republic of Korea (South Korea)

South Korea vigorously protested the official approval of the 2005 Japanese history textbooks. South Korean Minister of Trade Kim Hyun-Chong canceled a planned visit to an Asian trade summit in Japan [5].

Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

In 2005, North Korea condemned the official approval of the revision of Japanese textbooks. One official was quoted as calling the textbooks "philistinism peculiar to Japan, a vulgar and shameless political dwarf" [6].

Specific issues

Nanjing Massacre

The actions of Japanese soldiers during the occupation of the city of Nanjing still breed anger in many Chinese today. In the 1937 Japanese takeover of Nanjing, most evidence points to an estimated 300,000 people killed. More were raped and tortured. However, these Japanese textbooks only briefly mention the atrocities committed and refer to the Nanjing Massacre as an "incident" while failing to mention the specifics.

Comfort women

Initially believed to be a method to curb random Japanese soldiers raping civilians, the Comfort Women were mainly Korean, Chinese, Filipino and Vietnamese women coerced or forced by the Japanese military to work as sex slaves during World War II. The Japanese military had stated at the time that the women were voluntary prostitutes, but overwhelming evidence suggests otherwise.

Forced enlistment

At the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War and World War II, Korea was already occupied by Japan. Many Korean men were ordered to enlist in the Japanese army during World War II.

Testing of chemical and biological weapons on Asian civilians and Allied POWs

It is suspected that, during the height of Japan's power in 1942, the Japanese military began testing of certain chemical and biological weapons as an alternative method to winning the war. Tests are widely believed to have been conducted on civilians and allied POWs. Unit 731 in China's Heilongjiang province is proof of such tests. The incidents have been neither denied or admitted to by the Japanese government.

Japan's membership in the UN Security Council

Japan has long tried to gain entry into the UN Security Council as a permanent member. Some international observers, many of which are in China, have suggested that it would be dangerous to give Japan too much power on an international level, since it could give rise to new Japanese imperialism. Another argument is that Japan, as a defeated nation of World War II, would contradict the UN Charter if it was to enter the Security Council as a permanent member (both Germany and Italy have been prohibited from the Council for the very same reason.)

External links

• Translated Version of Controversial Japanese Textbook to Go Online
• Japan textbook angers Chinese, Korean press - BBC coverage of the story.

See also

• Historical revisionism
• List of Japanese war atrocities
• Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
• Senkaku Islands
• Liancourt Islands
• Sino-Japanese relations
• Chinese nationalism
• Japanese nationalism
• Fenqing
• Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China