Tortuous
tangles over Japanese textbooks
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Given the history of Japanese textbooks outraging the country's
neighbors by whitewashing Tokyo's World War II aggression and worsening its
relations with China, Korea and other nations, yet another textbook written and
published by right-wing groups has emerged. Though it is read by a tiny number
of students, it has found its way into popular bookstores where it is a strong
seller - a sign of the power of Japan's small number of influential
hawks. Despite its right-wing genesis, the textbook still could provide a
touchstone to reappraise historical wrongs. When it comes to Japan's seizing
the wartime nettle, however, the pacifist public may be willing, but the
political will, especially in the rightish Koizumi administration, doesn't seem
to be there.
This new history textbook, compiled by a Japanese right-wing group, is
offending China at a time of already strained political relations between
Asia's two most politically and economically powerful nations. Although the
vast majority of the Japanese do not support such right-wing, revisionist
textbooks, Chinese officials and media have expressed deep concerns that this
controversial textbook, The New History Textbook, distorts history and
whitewashes the atrocities committed by the Japanese military during the
invasion of China in World War II. Koreans are unhappy as well, but much less
vocal. For the ordinary, mostly pacifist Japanese, the textbook represents a
difficult state of affairs in which Japan is beset with troubles both at home
and abroad.
Japanese textbook controversies are nothing new, nor is Chinese and South
Korean outrage, but this outcry comes at a time of extreme political strain in
otherwise strong economic ties. And it is noteworthy because it represents the
latest efforts of Japan's small number of resurgent, noisy and prominent hawks,
such as Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, to rewrite and whitewash and inspire
a sense of pride of Japanese history, especially post-World War II.
The New History Textbook was approved by the Ministry of Education in
March 2001 and published that June. The seal of approval came from then
education minister Nobutaka Machimura, now the foreign minister after the
recent cabinet reshuffle; his history of approving right-wing textbooks has
raised concerns in China and South Korea. One of the main authors is Kanji
Nishio, professor emeritus at the University of Electro-Communications in
Tokyo.
The good news is that only a tiny number of junior high schools are using The
New History Textbook. As of May 2003, only 15 junior high schools
nationwide, seven public and eight private, said they would use the textbook
beginning in April this year. Since then it may have been adopted by a few more
schools; the number is not known, though analysts say the number is still very
small - the annual survey was conducted in May 2003 and the survey results were
released in December. At that time, it was estimated that fewer than 1,200
students, of 3.75 million junior-high-school students in Japan, were using the
textbook. Japan has 11,134 junior high schools - including 10,434 public and
700 private. This means that only 0.13%, maybe a little more, of the total
number of junior high schools have been using it, despite aggressive right-wing
media campaigns. The figures on usage come from the textbook division of the
ministry. While numbers may have increased somewhat, the actual student readers
amount to about 0.032% - far below the right-wing group's targeted goal of 10%
of the total number of schools. Japan has six years of elementary school, three
years of junior high school, three years of high school and four years of
university.
As for another, less well-known New Civics Textbook, only 11 schools
(two public and nine private) said in May 2003 that they would use the book
beginning in April 2004.
Right-wing group compiles textbooks
Both The New History Textbook and The New Civics Textbook are
junior-high textbooks compiled by the Japanese Society for Textbook Reform, a
right-wing group.
Even from a Japanese perspective, The New History Textbook raises a
series of real problems of historical accuracy. It emphasizes descriptions of
inspiring Japanese traditions, culture and heritage, which the authors,
including Nishio and popular manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi, claim
Japan has lost in the postwar education system. For example, it emphasizes
descriptions on Kojiki, or "A Record of Ancient Matters" compiled in AD
712, and Nihon Shoki or "Chronicles of Japan" compiled in AD 720, and so
on. These historical descriptions may well be within the bounds of accuracy,
correctness and acceptability - but the context is not.
The contentious points include the textbook's attempts to view the 1941-45
Pacific War as the War for Asian Liberation from Western rule the United
States, the United Kingdom and others. For this reason, the textbook
consistently uses the word Daitoa Senso, "The Greater East Asian War",
instead of "Pacific War", since they claim the Japanese military government at
the time named the war Daitoa Senso. In addition, the textbook questions
of the legitimacy of international war crimes laws and the legitimacy of the
1946-48 Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals, strongly suggesting it was a case of
the hypocrisy of the victors, who themselves committed war crimes.
Moreover, what Japanese media see as one, but not the only, major problem is
the book's failure to mention the issue of comfort women, or women rounded up
in Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere and forced into prostitution to
"comfort" Japanese troops. An estimated 100,000-200,000 were mobilized into
this sex slavery, about 80% of them said to have been Korean girls and women.
Others were Filipinas, Chinese and a handful of Westerners.
It touches upon the mass killing of ordinary Chinese, calling it the Nanjing
Incident, not the Nanjing Massacre. China and intentionally recognized foreign
scholars say about 300,000 civilians, non-combatants, were killed by Japanese
troops; at least 20,000 women were raped. Photographic and other documentary
evidence is abundant. The worst of the slaughter and atrocities took place from
December 1937 through January-February 1938. The book makes no mention of the
number of victims.
The textbook was published in Tokyo in 2001 by Fuso Publishing Co, a member of
a media conglomerate called Fuji Sankei Group, which was formed by the
right-leaning Sankei Shimbun newspaper and Fuji Television in 1967. Besides
newspapers, the Sankei Shimbun also publishes a monthly magazine called Seiron,
meaning "Just Argument", which frequently has carried articles to spark
anti-Chinese prejudice, often motivated by jingoism.
Textbook readily available at commercial bookstores
What makes this more than the case of a couple of small textbooks of small
circulation is that unlike seven other major history textbooks authorized by
the central government, The New History Textbook also has been readily
commercially available at ordinary bookstores, as are some other textbooks. And
it is a big seller. So Fuji Sankei Group is striving to win many readers and
make huge profits by promoting the book as a hot topic in the mass media in
Japan and elsewhere, such as in China. The more people talk about it, the more
the book sells. It appears to have been using China's backlash against the
textbook to increase its profits significantly. This kind of corporate strategy
is very common at any publishing company in bottom-line capitalism, but the
morality in this case is questionable at best.
Apart from classroom use, Fuso Publishing Co has sold about 700,000 copies in
bookstores at 980 yen (about US$9) apiece - $6.3 million, according to the
publisher.
The textbook issue first arose in March 2001 when it got the stamp of approval
from the Education Ministry for use in the April 2002-March 2003 period. At
that time, the authorization prompted a fierce domestic debate as well as an
international chorus of criticism, mainly from China and South Korea, which
argued that the nationalistic textbook glossed over Japan's wartime atrocities.
The then education minister, now Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, who had
given it his stamp of approval, said at the time that the sensibilities of
neighboring countries were taken into consideration and that the book met
national criteria. He said he expected the concerns of China, South Korea and
others would be assuaged by reading the approved textbook - they were not.
Prior to that, the Education Ministry had requested Fuso Publishing Co to
rewrite the proposed textbook more objectively and critically, with a more
accurate and honest perspective on Japan's wartime past. Then, after the firm
made 137 corrections, additions and amendments from the original, responding to
the ministry's recommendations, the textbook was finally approved.
Despite this controversy, Japanese educational circles in the real-world
classroom have been more cool and critical. China and others might wish to know
- and should know - that in Japan, because of the decentralization of
educational administration, the central government cannot force any school to
adopt a specific textbook. Each of prefectural boards of education, educational
boards of cities and towns, and principals have the final say in deciding on a
textbook and depending on school types such as public or private. Moreover,
some parents and teachers of those students who will use this controversial
textbook are afraid the book's lack of balance will hurt students' chances of
success in the daunting Japanese university's entrance examinations in their
future. In addition, supplementary materials are sometimes more important,
especially in preparatory private schools because students cannot enter
prestigious universities by reading just one government-authorized textbook.
The textbook issue surfaced again on August 26, however, when the Tokyo
Metropolitan Board of Education chose this controversial history textbook out
of eight authorized textbooks for use at a junior high school integrating with
Hakuo High School. Until that time, the Tokyo education board had adopted the
textbook for use only at two public junior high schools for handicapped
children. Japanese media such as the liberal Asahi Shimbun have reported that
right-wing Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara was quietly working behind the
scenes to ensure this textbook adoption. This is because Ishihara himself had
appointed two of six members of the Tokyo Board of Education. (Ishihara and
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi are connected by marriage.)
China admits most Japanese despise textbook
As expected, China and South Korea promptly criticized this textbook adoption.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan issued statements twice in which
he said Japan should "educate the young generation with the accurate view of
history" and that Japan should "deal with that period of history of aggression
with accurate recognition of it", Chinese media reported. Kong Quan, however,
admitted the fact that the textbook "has been despised by the majority of the
Japanese public".
Meanwhile, South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon said,
"Japan should face history as it is and develop future-oriented relations with
South Korea based on a correct recognition of history," according to the Korea
Times. The newspaper also mentioned that "Japanese civic groups, as well as
activists in Korea and other Asian nations, have staged a signature-collection
campaign and submitted 29,000 signatures to the [Japanese] Education Commission
earlier this year to prevent the controversial book from being adopted".
Why do these sorts of right-wing scholars groups and rightish politicians, such
as Ishihara, always remain active in Japanese society, especially in political
circles, while the majority of Japanese have not actually supported such things
as this textbook?
These right-wingers have much in common in that they still very much adhere to
prewar emperor-centered nationalistic views, or Shintoism, which even US
General Douglas MacArthur, the post-surrender potentate in Tokyo and protector
of the Japanese monarchy after World War II, could not destroy.
In Japan, dealing with the misdeeds of World War II started with the
exoneration of the last Showa emperor, Hirohito. The US occupation force, led
by MacArthur, avoided questioning the last emperor's possible wartime
responsibility, especially his moral responsibility, as wartime head of the
nation. For MacArthur, it was necessary to avoid blaming the revered emperor so
as to carry out US occupation policy swiftly and achieve smooth control of
then-turbulent Japanese lands and people. Otherwise, Japan could have become
like today's Iraq, filled with massive riots and guerrillas - or terrorists, to
use the contemporary parlance. Japan's dealing with the past got off to a bad
start.
To be fair, the United States needed such a policy, at least toward the
emperor, for deep-seated reasons. Faced with the 1950-53 Korean War, the rise
of communism in China and McCarthyism at home, the US needed a defensive line
against China and the Soviet Union. And so the US released from Sugamo Prison
many suspected war criminals, including political and business leaders, such as
two right-wing godfathers, Ryoichi Sasagawa and Kiyoshi Kodama, as well as
Nobusuke Kishi, who served as minister of commerce and industry during Hideki
Tojo's militaristic administrations.
LDP riven by pro-China, pro-Taiwan factions
Kishi himself became a prime minister in 1957; he is known as the founder of a
faction of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which currently is the
most powerful faction within the party and is led by former prime minister
Yoshiro Mori. This Mori faction is a steadfast political foundation for the
Koizumi administration, to which Koizumi belonged before becoming prime
minister. Kishi is also known as grandfather of Shinzou Abe, a former LDP
secretary general, No 2 position in LDP after the party president, which
Koizumi has been serving as since he took office in April 2001. The Mori
faction is known in Japan as pro-Taiwan, while the largest faction of the LDP
that had been led by former prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto until the end of
this past July is known as pro-China. (Hashimoto stepped down as chairperson of
that faction in the aftermath of a recent donation scandal.) This is because
Hashimoto's faction's roots go back to a group founded by the late prime
minister Kakuei Tanaka, who signed the Japan-China Joint Communique and
achieved the normalization of diplomatic relations with China in 1972. These
two factions, pro-China and pro-Taiwan, have been the long-standing rivals in
the LDP.
One episode is famous in Japan's political world and among political reporters.
Tanaka had been kicked out from the premier's office because of the so-called
Lockheed bribery scandal. Many Japanese politicians still believe allegations
of bribery surfaced over Lockheed because of revelations by the US
administration, because Tanaka was too pro-China and put Beijing ahead of the
US-Japan alliance. Japanese politicians have since become more obedient to the
United States, trying not to make the same mistake as the late Tanaka. In this
context, it was not a historical happenstance that popular Makiko Tanaka, the
daughter of pro-China Tanaka, was forced to step down from the post of foreign
minister by the pro-US administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in
August 2002.
Soon after World War II, the US tried to make Japan an unarmed nation by
introducing a war-renouncing constitution to the physically and emotionally
devastated nation. But the US changed its course in midstream by not purging
all the old militarists and creating self-defense forces in 1952. American
scholar John W Dower says in his Pulitzer-prize-winning book Embracing Defeat,
published in 1999, that this "'reverse course' helped establish a domestic
conservative hegemony of politicians, bureaucrats, and businessmen that
remained dominant to the end of the century". In some ways Japan still retains
the old order of things.
These international arenas after the war made Japan in the Far East totally
different from Germany, which did not have wars such as the Korean War to
contend with and managed to prosecute Nazi war criminals on its own, in
addition to the Nuremburg Trials. Japan failed to do such a thing, failed early
on to try its war criminals and face its past. As a result, reckoning with the
past has not thoroughly been achieved, with some refusing to face up to past
wrongs, though much of the nation is pacifist. One must remember that in 1989 a
right-wing extremist tried to assassinate mayor Hitoshi Motoshima of Nagasaki
because he said that Emperor Hirohito bore "some responsibility" for World War
II.
Japan's right-wingers say China's claims about the textbook constitute
interference in Japan's internal affairs, and they are afraid China's claims
could lead to harm the legitimacy of the imperial house, the Chrysanthemum
Throne, the world's longest continuous monarchy, which the majority of Japanese
have supported for more than 1,000 years.
The Japanese government thinks reparations to each war victim in China, South
Korea and other countries are not politically feasible, because this would mean
revising every treaty with countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines,
Vietnam and others. Japan officially claims reparations already were officially
made in the form of major economic assistance when Japan entered into the
treaties with those countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines.
Japan tried to emulate some German compensation
Still, amid strong domestic and international criticism, the Japanese
government tried to follow Germany's path by establishing a private
humanitarian fund called "the Asia Women's Fund" in 1995, marking the 50th
anniversary of the conclusion of World War II, to pay reparations to former
comfort women by collecting donations from Japanese citizens. The government
got the idea from the "Germany-Poland Reconciliation Fund". The Asia Women's
Fund finally succeeded in collecting 559 million Japanese yen (about $5.1
million) in total. But many former comfort women, such as those in South Korea
and the Philippines, refused to accept any reparations because they said a
sincere apology from the Japanese government was still lacking, and the
reparations offer wounded their dignity again. Further, they rejected
compensation despite the fact that the government decided to pay reparations to
each woman (2 million yen or $18,700), accompanied by a letter from prime
minister Ryutaro Hashimoto expressing apology. Many Japanese felt at a loss
what to do next. Only about 300 women in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines
and other countries were said to have actually received payments.
Grant Goodman, professor emeritus at the University of Kansas, writes in Legacies
of the Comfort Women of World War II that the US military around 1945
knew about the plight of the comfort women, but did nothing to raise this issue
at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. The US needed Japan as its strongest ally in
Asia, puppet or not, and was willing to overlook some of Japan's wrongs and
crimes officially.
To put it bluntly, if the US had raised the major issues of Japan's past
wrongs, such the late Showa emperor's war responsibility and comfort women, at
the Tokyo Tribunal on War Crimes, the current political relations between Japan
and China and the Koreas would have been drastically improved.
Many Japanese feel that the former and current emperors and prime ministers
apologized in some form, or at least expressed regret, on many occasions,
especially when China's and South Korea's presidents visited Tokyo.
Furthermore, as for China, many think the Japanese over the years provided
massive economic assistance to that country, making restitution to a nation
they had devastated. Over the years, especially well under way in earnest in
the 1980s, Japan has granted yen-denominated government loans to China totaling
about 3.3 trillion yen ($30 billion).
Japanese media have reported that the new Beijing Capital International Airport
opened on October 1, 1999, marking the 50th anniversary of Chinese communist
rule, was built with Japan's economic assistance, and that Chinese media have
never reported these kinds of Japan's willingness and actual financial
contributions in outright grants, low-interest loans and other
investments/payments. All of these things appear to have led to distrust by
many Japanese of the Chinese government and media. Now Japanese people appear
to worry that China's growing national satisfaction and self-esteem will
further intensify anti-Japanese feelings, combined with and even fueled by
Japan's almost constant provocations by its hawks. Those anti-Japanese feelings
were exemplified in the Asian Cup final in Beijing on August 7 - China lost to
Japan, on Chinese soil.
South Korean sought to overcome festering Japan ties
History issues also used to fester over South Korea-Japan relations. The
situations drastically changed in October 1998 when South Korean president Kim
Dae-jung visited Tokyo and made an official 30-minute speech to the Diet
(parliament). He said, "Japan needs true courage to squarely face the past ...
and the Republic of Korea needs to correctly evaluate Japan's changing attitude
and find hope in future possibilities." Kim also said that a joint declaration
signed by him and prime minister Keizo Obuchi was a milestone in efforts to
overcome the differences and that the declaration put an end to a chapter of
differences between the two countries over their past. He said it would serve
as a basis for exploring a future aimed at joint peace and prosperity.
Japanese political observers say this Japan-South Korea reconciliation summit,
combined with the co-hosting of the 2002 World Cup soccer meet and cultural
exchange, greatly helped to improve ties between South Korea and Japan. Japan
is even experiencing the Korean culture boom called Hang-Ryu (Korean wave)
now. Korean soap operas such as Winter Sonata and movies have become
very popular and "in" here.
China and Japan, indeed, might need such a reconciliation summit. To achieve
that, Koizumi should either end his regular visits to the Yasukuni Shrine
memorializing the war dead (including Class A war criminals such as Hideki
Tojo) or accept the recommendation of a government-appointed committee to
create a separate secular facility to honor the war dead, so that Japanese
leaders do not have to go to Yasukuni, the symbolic shrine of Japanese
Shintoism.
If a person tries to forget about many years of his or her life, he or she will
become a sick person. If a country tries to forget about many years of its
history, it will become a sick country. In this sense, Japan, in effect, has
been afflicted by schizophrenia and amnesia in coping with - and trying to
forget - its past wrongs. To cure this kind of ailment, Japan must go on
grappling with its past, because there is surely no future for any country that
does not, cannot or will not learn from its history, despite taboos against
discussing certain events, and despite the political storms that such
courageous inquiry could engender.
For China's part, it needs to refrain from overreacting to the undiminished
actions of Japan's small but vocal right wing. Being paranoid about Japan's
hawks and their actions and exaggerating everything they do, such as the
textbook issue, could play into the hands of those very Japanese rightists.
This could stir up latent anti-Chinese sentiment among ordinary Japanese and
further hurt Japan-China political relations, at a time when bilateral economic
ties are strong. In other words, if China were to take a level-headed attitude
toward this textbook issue - remember, only a handful of schools (maybe 15 or a
few more) use them - could surely regain the trust of Japan's ordinary people
toward China. Then the noose would be about the Japanese right-wingers' necks,
just where the South Korean administrations of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun
have placed it.
Moreover, China might want to strive not to use historical issues with Japan as
countervailing actions against the US-Japan alliance, for many Japanese
intellectuals believe China has sometimes used this kind of history "card" as
Beijing's divide-and-rule strategy in dealing with the US and Japan. This
alliance represents a thorn vis-a-vis the Taiwan issue. China appears to have
used the history card to prevent Japan from emerging as a political power in
East Asia, especially one with military muscle.
Still and all, if China really wanted Japan to face up to the past, it should
request that Japan tackle the last emperor's war responsibility head-on. But in
this case, the relations between China and Japan would be a real tar baby. It
needs to leave this issue to Japan's overwhelmingly conscientious people, such
as those who have filed legal cases against Koizumi in an effort to stop his
visits to the Yasukuni Shrine - one court has already ruled the visits
unconstitutional. To be sure, there are many more friendly Japanese who want to
promote much better relations with China than the right-wingers, as shown by
the actual number of junior high schools that have not used the textbook
so far - the great majority.
Kosuke Takahashi is a former staff writer at the Asahi Shimbun and is
currently a freelance correspondent based in Tokyo.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact
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sales and syndication policies.)
influential
hawks. Despite its right-wing genesis, the textbook still could provide a
touchstone to reappraise historical wrongs. When it comes to Japan's seizing
the wartime nettle, however, the pacifist public may be willing, but the
political will, especially in the rightish Koizumi administration, doesn't seem
to be there.
