Are Japanese textbooks distorting history?

[karaoke*samurai]

I'm japanese. I believe American people, japanese friend, have sence of China.

We Japanese think our invasion of China and Southeast Asia in WWII was quite wrong. However, we cannot admit Chinese claims. It is because these are based on misunderstanding and prejudice whatever intentional or not.


These are Japanese FLASHes. Please spread these URL. Help!!
http://www.geocities.jp/baud_2005/tx310.html
http://www.geocities.jp/baud_2005/tx310c1.html (Chinese version)

[ericg]

The same is true for America too. It's a shame. A covered up shame. A damn compounded shame that's denied until the day people are cracked and made to own up. Nobody with the wherewithal has put any good time into this, so we're all screwed.

For no good reason, human governments tend to be remiss, bereft of unity or any credible working substance.. allowing world situations to stale mate in last attempts of who knows what... the world always check mates itself. I don't know where the people that know better and care are or what they are doing right. The world is desperate for the truth and facts. And that's just for starters. It's all quite incredible. Ending up lost and stupid every time is never any fun, and yet the confounded always want to front that it's fine. It's pathetic that nothing has been done correctly. People have resources, but never true to their own. It makes me sick.

[DroppinScience]

Thanks for sharing that. It was very interesting.

I do think the Chinese are being out of line. My guess is that the Chinese government distorts far more lies to their citizens today than the Japanese government to their citizens.

[ASsman]

All I can remember is that the Japanese did some pretty sick shit in China...

[Schmeltz]

That's putting it mildly. The Japanese armies in China conducted themselves in a fashion nothing short of bestial and subhuman. Even the most reserved descriptions of their atrocities are mind-bogglingly appalling. It may be true that the Chinese government is exploiting this issue in order to boost its own position, but that shouldn't obscure the fact that many people affected by this historical tragedy don't seem to think that Japan has fully owned up to its atrocious, destructive legacy of racial imperialism, and for pretty good reason.

Perhaps the issue would cool off if Japan would actually make a meaningful apology - or is that one of the outrageous Chinese claims that simply cannot be considered?

[Whois]

Perhaps the issue would cool off if Japan would actually make a meaningful apology - or is that one of the outrageous Chinese claims that simply cannot be considered?

Ask the Koreans...

[Ali]

That's putting it mildly. The Japanese armies in China conducted themselves in a fashion nothing short of bestial and subhuman. Even the most reserved descriptions of their atrocities are mind-bogglingly appalling. It may be true that the Chinese government is exploiting this issue in order to boost its own position, but that shouldn't obscure the fact that many people affected by this historical tragedy don't seem to think that Japan has fully owned up to its atrocious, destructive legacy of racial imperialism, and for pretty good reason.

Perhaps the issue would cool off if Japan would actually make a meaningful apology - or is that one of the outrageous Chinese claims that simply cannot be considered?The China did pretty much the same thing to the Tibet in 1949, and then some. (http://www.elevenshadows.com/tibet/mainpage.htm)

I don't see China apologising to Tibet in a hurry... seeing as it no longer exists as a country.

more (http://www.tibetnepalimports.com/info.html)

lots more (http://www.google.com/search?q=chinese%20invasion%20tibet%20atrocities)

[Schmeltz]

Oh, I get it - the Chinese atrocities in Tibet cancel out the Japanese atrocities in China. So there's no Japanese culpability anymore! It's so simple.

[ASsman]

I don't think that's the point he was trying to make, although it might have seemed that way.

[Ali]

Oh, I get it - the Chinese atrocities in Tibet cancel out the Japanese atrocities in China. So there's no Japanese culpability anymore! It's so simple.No, you don't get it. Japan has apologised profusely to China many, many times while China continues to persecute Tibetans to this day.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but China is in no position to be criticising Japan for not trying to make amends, that's all.

[Schmeltz]

I fail to see how China's own inadequate human rights record should excuse Japan from a full and proper admission of its own transgressions. And what Japanese apologies have been offered are, evidently, not considered sincere or meaningful enough to heal this rift.

[Ali]

I fail to see how China's own inadequate human rights record should excuse Japan from a full and proper admission of its own transgressions. And what Japanese apologies have been offered are, evidently, not considered sincere or meaningful enough to heal this rift.Not considered sincere or meaningful enough...

by the Chinese government, paragon of virtue that it is.

Anyway, it has nothing to do with the nature of apologies and everything to do with oil (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=S%27%29%280%24Q1%2B%23%2 3P%20%21%0A).China and Japan have long argued over islands at the southern end of Japan's chain, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Japan has recently assumed ownership of a lighthouse built on one by a nationalist group, in order to underline its claim, while China has been sending research and test-drilling ships into what Japan claims as its exclusive economic zone, north-east of the islands, in the hope of getting a share of oil and gas deposits there or, say some Japanese politicians, to map the sea bed for Chinese submariners.

On October 25th last year a meeting was held between Chinese and Japanese officials to try to launch negotiations about those marine resources, but it was a throwback to chillier days: it lasted ten hours, consisted only of prepared statements from both sides, and ended without agreement even on a date for a further meeting. The Japanese ruling party's committee dealing with this issue is now considering a proposal that Japan should send in its own test-drilling vessel. As such a vessel would in turn have to be protected by the Japanese navy and coastguards, that would be both a signal that Japan means business and a risk that a confrontation might follow.

...

As both countries have become richer, more powerful and more important as trading partners, so they have become natural rivals for primacy within their region.

China and Japan have been rivals for the best part of a millennium. For much of that time, China had the upper hand. But from the mid-19th century until the 1990s it was in decline, both economically and politically, while Japan was in the ascendant, establishing colonies in Taiwan and Korea at the turn of the 20th century and then invading China itself in the 1930s. As Japan grew into an economic giant in the 1960s and 1970s, China was economically weak and preoccupied with the mayhem of its Cultural Revolution.

For the past three decades, since Deng Xiaoping began to convert China's economy from central planning to market-led capitalism, China has been on the up again. Trade with this rapidly growing and changing place is now ever more important to all countries, but especially to its neighbouring economic giant, Japan, and especially since Japan's stagnation in the wake of its stockmarket crash in 1990. China's rise, however, has also reinforced old worries on two scores: China's hunger for natural resources, including its territorial claims in the seas surrounding it, and its ability to modernise its armed forces, thus altering the strategic balance in the region and producing jitters in Japan.