Japan's new textbooks lead youths astray with lies about its dark past

ON MONDAY, THE JAPANESE MINISTRY of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology published its screening results of history textbooks to be used from the spring 2016 semester in middle schools nationwide. Some of the textbooks distort history even further than past versions, such as replacing the Imperial Japanese Army "massively killed captives and civilians" with "many casualties and deaths". Most of them also say the islands disputed by Japan and China, as well as Japan and South Korea are Japanese territories. Comments:

It is evident that publishing houses are doing self-censorship under the pressure of conservatism, which is rampant in society. The Japanese government has emphasized that publishing houses should respect the government's viewpoints and that has caused this imbalance.

Beijing Times, quoting Enori Fujita, a professor of education at Kyoei University, April 7