Chinese Scholars Protest Japanese History-Distorting Textbook

A group of Chinese scholars in Japan issued a statement on Wednesday, urging the Japanese government to properly handle the issue concerning a junior high school history textbook written by some Japanese historians trying to distort history and justify Japan's past aggression against its Asian neighbors.

Correctly understanding the past history is a political foundation not only for Sino-Japanese relations, but also for the lasting friendship between the two peoples, the group, formed by more than 100 Chinese researchers and professors working in Japan' s universities, research institutes and enterprises, said in the statement.

It is an indisputable fact that Japanese militarists inflicted great sufferings on people of China and other Asian countries, as well as Japanese people in the past, the statement said, adding that the writers' ignorance of the fact greatly hurt the feeling of the Chinese people.

The textbook, compiled by members of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, is being examined by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for use in the school year starting in April 2002.

The original draft of the textbook describes World War II as the "Greater East Asian War of the Co-Prosperity Sphere" and justifies Japan's invasion of Southeast Asia by saying victories over the Western powers there allowed countries in the region to achieve postwar independence.

If the textbook is approved and used by Japanese schools, then Japan's young people will increasing misunderstand historical facts, the statement added.

The historians group, led by Kanji Nishio, a professor at the state-run University of Electro-Communications, maintains current Japanese history textbooks are "biased against Japan and full of self-denigration."

(Xinhua 03/21/2001)