PLA Daily 2005-03-10

　　Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura faulted China's education on history and even came out with such absurd requirements as changing the exhibition mode of the Memorial Hall of the Chinese People's Anti-Japanese War in Beijing. The question is who on earth should straighten out its history education, Japan or China? Facts speak louder than words.

　　China educates her youngsters to the letter of the historical truth. After being reduced to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, China was plagued by imperialist aggression and suppression with the worst miseries and misfortunes inflicted on them by no one else but the Japanese militarists. The Japanese invasion of Taiwan in 1874 was followed by a string of Japanese aggressive actions against China like launching the Sino-Japanese War of 1884-1895, forcing China to cede Taiwan, putting forward the twenty-one demands of bullying China and finally launching the all-round attack on China, thus inflicting dreadful ordeal on the Chinese people. The causalities suffered by the Chinese servicemen and civilians during the Anti-Japanese War hit the staggering 35 million. In Nanjing alone, the Japanese aggressors slaughtered 300, 000 innocent civilians. An official from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated, “Chinese patriotic education sounds almost like anti-Japanese education”. In fact, when giving account of this period of history, China has all along been stressing that it was a handful of militarists who launched the aggression and the broad Japanese people were likewise victims of the aggressive war. It has also been underlining that the people of both countries should carry on the friendship from generation to generation. These are by no means “anti-Japanese education”.

　　Now then, let's see how does Japan conduct education on this part of the history of aggression?

　　In June 1982, when reviewing the history textbook for the next year, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology distorted the facts by replacing the term of “aggression” in the previous textbook with “entry” or “enter” and even went so far as to falsify the reason for the Nanjing Massacre by stating that “the killing of a great many Chinese troops and civilians by the Japanese forces was prompted by the Chinese troop's fierce resistance, which inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese forces who were enraged by that.” The review of the textbook also tampered with the historical facts of Japan's invasion of the Korean Peninsula and Southeast Asia. During the final review of the New Japanese History Textbook for senior high school students in July 1986, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology approved the textbook with numerous misrepresentations of the historical facts as “acceptable”, thus triggering off strong oppositions in the Asian countries concerned. On November 27, 2004, the Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Nariaki Nakayama claimed at a rally that the Japanese textbook should dust off the image of “self-abuse” and he was glad to see the reduction of such terms as “comfort woman in the army” and “captured labor” in the textbook. He also said that the textbook had been full of exceeding self-accusations, as if Japan had done nothing but wrongdoings in the past; Japan should not only offer “self-abuse” history education and instead the new generation of Japan should be made “proud” of their nation and history. One could not help to ask: Is this the right attitude to look squarely at the history? Is this the correct way of educating the young generations with the right historical outlook?

　　When Mr. Nobutaka Machimura attributes the indignation of the Chinese people at the aggression of Japanese militarists to the so-called “anti-Japanese education”, he is in fact confusing right and wrong. Only by facing up to its history of aggression and by educating its youngsters with the historical facts so as to help them to acknowledge the crimes and evil nature of the aggressive war, can Japan avoid embarking on the same old disastrous road and can it gain the forgiveness of the people of the victimized nations. This is the only right attitude to approach history.

　　By Zhou Yihuang

　　(Mar. 9, PLA Daily)