A junior high-school history textbook edited by a nationalist group continues to stir controversy and provoke anger, especially in South Korea. The textbook in question, written by the Japanese Society for Textbook Reform, which calls existing history textbooks "masochistic," recently cleared censorship by the Education Ministry after drastic revisions were made.
The original text put a positive spin on the Pacific War and the events that led to it. It did not say anything significant about what happened in Japan's former colonies. It portrayed Japan more as a victim in the war -- referring to the U.S. air raids, for example -- and devoted little space to the Asian nations invaded by the Japanese military, saying only that the fighting had "caused considerable damage" to those nations.
The ministry's curriculum guidelines stress the importance of "deepening (children's) love for the nation's history," but also call for "cultivating a spirit of international cooperation." Because textbooks are censored in light of these guidelines, it is only natural that the textbook in question was drastically revised. The censors requested a total of 137 changes -- more than five times the average for other history textbooks.