Japan's history textbook will anger Asian nations: Singapore papers

Asian Political News, April 11, 2005

SINGAPORE, April 6 Kyodo

Singapore's main English and Chinese language newspapers said Wednesday that Japan's adoption of a controversial history textbook will anger Asian nations, which perceive it as an attempt to whitewash Japan's wartime past.

''Japan's revised textbook sure to spark backlash,'' the Straits Times' headline said, adding the new book ''glosses over atrocities'' committed by Japanese troops during World War II and ''further glorifies Japan's military aggression'' in East Asia in the war.

''The newly authorized textbooks are bound to worsen Japan's relations with China and South Korea,'' it added.

Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore's main Chinese newspaper, said ''Japan's attempt to whitewash its military aggression has added fuel to the fire of anti-Japan movement in China and South Korea.''

Singapore was invaded and occupied by Japanese troops from 1942 to 1945, but unlike China and South Korea, the government has refrained from criticizing Japan for its wartime past since the 1960s to attract Japanese investment.

There are also no protests from citizens because street protests are generally not allowed in Singapore.

The two newspapers published their stories only on inside pages rather than on front pages.

On Tuesday, Japan's education ministry approved a second edition of a controversial textbook authored by a nationalist group of academics, together with other screened textbooks.

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform criticizes mainstream Japanese history textbooks as being ''biased against Japan'' and marked by ''self-denigration.''

The textbook published by Fusosha Publishing Inc., which was first approved in 2001, has stirred outrage from China and South Korea, which see its content as justifying and glorifying Japan's past military aggression.