japanese really changed history

[redkingjoe]

They say that, after a war, the losers get the gallows and the winners get to write the history.

Except for Japan.:


(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/13/listening_post/main687759.shtml)


the japanese, with the approval of the ministry of edu in japan, altered the historical facts in the middle-school textbook in order to whitewash wartime atrocities...what a shame?

[discostu]

i'm not sure china is in a position to critisise others for censorship ;)

[redkingjoe]

i'm not sure china is in a position to critisise others for censorship ;)

i think it's not only china that criticize the japanese's doing. the jap have been doing this for each "4 years" as textbooks get revised every four years.

anyway, does the appeasement policy adopted by the UK, France etc to Nazi during the WW2 ring the bell:

Japan's whitewash textbook
PM Archive - Monday, 18 June , 2001 00:00:00
Reporter: Mark Simkin
MARK COLVIN: To Japan now, where the country's best selling book is not a novel or a romance, it's a school history text. Not just any text book either, this one has infuriated many Asian countries by glossing over Japan's war time atrocities.

Critics are appalled but not surprised by its success. Tokyo correspondent Mark Simkin reports.

MARK SIMKIN: The book might be controversial, its subject matter sensitive, but that has only inflamed Japan's interest.

At this book store in Tokyo sales are brisk, but not everyone who's buying the book is a fan.

VOX POP: This man wants to see if the criticisms are justified. "I have a child who is a primary school student" he says. "As you know there have been concerns about the book's content. I don't believe we should be too critical about what Japan did during the war, but I would not support a book that was not factual, especially if it is a school text book".

MARK SIMKIN: The text book, which is intended for use by school students aged 12 to 15, went on sale to the general public earlier this month.

According to a survey by two of Japan's biggest book stores, it's become the nation's number one best seller across all categories. People who have been campaigning against the book, such as Yayori Matsui [phonetic] are appalled.

YAYORI MATSUI: I think those who bought this, these books, included those who wants to criticise it. They want to know the content. But I think the majority have sympathy with the content I think because basically they sort of give a nationalistic sort of pride, national pride.

MARK SIMKIN: Yayori Matsui says the book whitewashes Japan's military aggression. The issue of comfort women - the 100,000 women who were forced to provide sex for Japanese troops - is glossed over, and the Nanjing massacre - in which Japanese troops killed 150,000 civilians in China - is played down.

The book also avoids using the word invasion when referring to Japan's occupation of other Asian countries, arguing instead that Japan actually helped those nations.

The advance southward by the Japanese Imperial Army gave impetus to Asian countries to achieve independence earlier it asserts.

Claims like that have angered Japan's neighbours. Both China and South Korea have protested vigorously, demanding the book be rewritten.

But the Japanese government is standing firm, and insists that the book will still be eligible to appear in classrooms as scheduled from April next year.

This is Mark Simkin in Tokyo for PM.