Japanese government approve changing history again

What if American history book said slavery never happend or no Indians were killed? What about German histroy book said no Jews were killed in WWII? You hardly ever hear anything in the western media about these things.

Link

Chinese and S.Koreans sue over Japan textbook
TOKYO (Reuters) - A group of Chinese and South Koreans have sued a Japanese regional government over a textbook that critics say whitewashes Japan's militaristic past at a time of frayed ties between Japan and its two neighbours.

Japan's Education Ministry approved the textbook, written by nationalist scholars for junior high schools, in 2001 despite strong protests from China and South Korea and a new version is expected to be approved early next month.

The lawsuit, filed at a district court in Ehime prefecture in western Japan, seeks damages over decisions in 2001 and 2002 by Ehime's board of education to adopt the textbook for use at several junior high schools.

"(The textbook) justifies and hides the facts of ... Japan's invasion in Asia and the Pacific Ocean region and distorts history," the plaintiffs said in the lawsuit on Wednesday .

The suit was filed by around 260 plaintiffs, mostly South Koreans including over 50 parliamentarians.

There were also 68 Chinese plaintiffs and several Japanese.

They demanded that Ehime Governor Moriyuki Kato and several current and former members of the Ehime school board pay each plaintiff 10,000 yen in damages.

They are also seeking published apologies in Chinese and South Korean newspapers, saying the board's decision to adopt the textbook had caused them mental anguish.

Critics have attacked the history text for downplaying the 1937 Nanjing Massacre in China, the sexual slavery of women by the Japanese military, and for depicting World War Two as a war aimed at liberating other Asian countries.

Although approved by the Education Ministry, only less than one percent of state school districts in Japan decided to use the textbook, which Japan said did not represent the government's official view of history.

Ehime's school board became one of the rare exceptions when it adopted the textbook for use at several schools for the physically and mentally handicapped in 2001 and three ordinary state junior high schools in 2002.

DIPLOMATIC FLARE-UP

The textbook issue is back in the spotlight ahead of the expected approval of the new version. Critics are worried that more local school boards may decide to use it this time.

The issue also seems set to flare up again as a diplomatic dispute.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said in a letter to the South Korean people this month that Seoul's determination to set Japan right on a territorial dispute over tiny islands claimed by both countries and the row over the history textbook "may cause stinging diplomatic war".

On Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon stressed the need to resolve the history issue and the dispute over the islands, called Tokto in Korea and Takeshima in Japan.

"We believe it will be impossible to establish future-oriented relations with Japan in a genuine manner if we are to put the issues of Tokto and (colonial period) history aside," Ban said at a regular media briefing.

There is lingering resentment in South Korea toward Japan's brutal 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula.

Japanese history textbooks, periodically updated under a system of screening by the Education Ministry, have often aroused fierce debate at home and in Asian countries invaded by Japan in the first half of the 20th century.

Over the past two decades, Japanese textbooks have gradually included more critical accounts of Japan's military aggression.

But that shift has prompted a backlash among Japanese nationalists, who criticised what they considered a "masochistic" view of history that deprived Japanese of pride and patriotism.

 

I agree this should not be generalized to all Japanese, but there is a group of Japanese that clearly do not believe in reality, and they have a lot of power in Japan.

 

Does foreigners have no right to sue US government under any condition? I doubt Japanese court will do anything.