Japanese textbook office attacked

TOKYO, Japan -- An attack has ben made on the office of nationalist authors responsible for putting together a controversial Japanese textbook.

An incendiary device went off in a parking lot next to the central Tokyo building where the historians work, just hours after the city's board of education voted to allow some schools to use the book.

Their decision marked the first time the textbook has been approved for use in public schools.

The so-called "New History Textbook" has sparked outrage among Japan's Asian neighbors.

They 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.

Blast

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In the latest mark of outrage in a drawn-out campaign for Japan to revise the text, the midnight Tuesday blast scorched a first-floor window frame, but nobody was injured, a police official said.

Police said nobody claimed responsibility for the blast, but they suspect the fire was set off by a timer planted by radicals opposed to the textbook, Kyodo news agency said.

The explosion followed a day of protests. About 500 angry Japanese demonstrated at the Tokyo Metropolitan government building where the board meeting was held.

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.

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 that Japan has apologized enough for the misdeeds of half a century ago.

Since June, more than 500,000 copies of the book have been sold.

Another thorny issue

Further straining ties with Seoul and Beijing is 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.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.