Japan town adopts controversial textbooks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-13 16:37

Beijing also declared its strong opposition to giving Japan a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a top goal of Japan's foreign policy.

The textbook is an update of a previous edition that was approved in 2001 and used by only 0.1 percent of Japan's junior high schools, all of them for mentally challenged students.

The book's authors, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, expressed hope that Otawara would set a new trend of schools adopting the book.

"We respect the decision by Otawara city," the Society said in a statement. "It reflects the deepening understanding of the textbook problem by Japanese citizens, and we expect this will spread to other regions in the country."

Opponents of the textbook were on Wednesday lobbying the Tokyo board of education to ensure Japan's biggest school system does not follow suit. School districts across Japan are due to decide on textbooks before August 31.

"The decision by the Otawara education board to adopt the problematic textbook will generate serious problems for the future of Japan and Japanese children," said Children and Textbook Japan Network 21, a group opposed to the textbook.

The book makes no mention of the women sexually enslaved by Japanese troops during their invasions of Asia and refers to the Nanjing massacre as an "incident" in which "many" Chinese died.

China says 300,000 people perished in the 1937 massacre of the occupied city; Allied trials of Japanese war criminals documented 140,000 deaths.

The book says Indonesians and Malaysians celebrated when Japan took over from Western colonialists, seeing the Asian nation as a liberator, although it briefly mentions that Japanese police could be "cruel" at the end of the war.

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