Outrage as book hits Japan schools

TOKYO, Japan -- A controversial textbook, slammed by critics as an outrage for whitewashing wartime atrocities, will be used in Japan's public schools for the first time.

Tokyo's board of education voted on Tuesday to allow three of the city's 45 schools to teach a volume called "new history textbook."

The textbook has irked Asian neighbors who say it tries to justify Japan's invasion of much of Asia in the first half of the 20th century, and glosses over the use of germ warfare and female prostitutes during the war.

South Korea, which suffered as Tokyo's colony from 1910 until 1945, has already showed its anger by freezing military exchanges and canceling plans to open its market to Japanese music, cartoons and video games.

'Protest with anger'

Though several private schools have said they would use the book, the board's decision is the first covering its use in any state school.

The text, written by nationalist scholars, is to be used from April at schools in Tokyo for physically and mentally handicapped children aged 13 to 15.

Angry Japanese protested at the Tokyo Metropolitan government building where the board meeting was held but were prevented from entering the closed-door session.

This is an outrageous decision that will go down in history," Children and Textbooks Japan Networks 21, a civic group with about 4,000 members nationwide, said in a statement.

"We protest against it with anger from the bottom of our hearts."

Other groups took to the streets, marching through the government district in central Tokyo, shouting: "Don't put these textbooks in the hands of our children."

'Not flawed'

Japan has angered South Korea and China by agreeing to just two of 35 revisions demanded by Seoul.

Japan has not bowed to mounting pressure and has rejected Seoul and Beijing's demands for further revisions, saying it can impose no changes based on historical interpretation.

Supporters of the book say Japanese students learn too much already about wartime atrocities and ought to be taught more pride in their country.

They also argue there is scant historical evidence for some of the atrocities Japan is accused of, adding that even if true, such violence is an inevitable part of war.

"I don't think our textbook is flawed," said Toshiaki Shirasawa, textbook department chief at the book's publisher, Fusosha. "It's the textbooks in the past that were wrong."

The book has tapped into a growing mood here that Japan has apologized enough for the misdeeds of half a century ago. Since June, Fusosha has sold 515,000 copies.

Another thorny issue

Ties with Seoul and Beijing are also strained over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's planned visit to a shrine for the war dead.

Koizumi may visit Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to Japan's 2.5 million war dead since the 19th century, on the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War Two on August 15.

The day is also South Korea's Liberation Day, celebrated to mark the end of Japan's 35-year occupation of the Korean peninsula.

Both Koreas and China have repeatedly expressed concern over the visit to the Shinto shrine, where wartime military leaders convicted as war criminals for their roles in Japan's invasion of Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, are also enshrined.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.