PLA Daily 2005-04-07

　　In every four years, Japan will publish the newly amended textbook. On April 5, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology passed the “New History Textbook” which was put together by the Japanese right wing groups. Although a multiple of amendments were made in the textbook to compare with the draft submitted to the ministry for approval, the keynote of distorting history and beautifying Japan's invasion has not changed. The Japanese right wing forces obstinately stick to the reactionary outlook of history and wanted to reverse Japan's past history of aggression. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology connived and supported the right wing scholars to tamper with the history textbook, which can but set off strong discontentment and great indignation of the Asian countries and people.

　　The crux of the Japanese textbook issue is in fact whether Japan can adopt a correct attitude toward its militarist aggressive history and whether Japan can educate its young generations with the correct outlook of history. Facing squarely at and taking the correct attitude toward history is the basic moral code of the mankind. Some Japanese individuals show no respect for history, and worse still, even try to distort history and beautify Japan's act of aggression, and that's why they are still lingering in the shadow of militarism. How on earth can they expect to win over the trust of the international community?

　　Recognizing or not the militarist aggressive history is a key matter of principle in developing China-Japan relations. The Chinese people have not forgotten that Japan conducted frenzied aggression against and unbridled plunder in China for as long as half a century after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, inflicting extremely severe disasters on the Chinese people. Today, in the spirit of “taking history as a mirror and looking forward into the future”, the Chinese people sincerely want to develop Sino-Japanese friendly and cooperative relations. However, that doesn't mean a nod to tolerance to distortion of and tampering with the history in order to revoke the verdict on Japan's militarism. The effort of distorting Japan's aggressive history and beautifying its militarism has not only violated the spirit and principle of the Sino-Japanese Joint Statement and denied the profound reflection of the Japanese government to the Chinese people about its aggression against China, but also has a bearing on the development and future of Sino-Japanese relations, on whether the Japanese young people are to have a correct understanding of history or to form a wrong outlook of history, on whether the militarism is to be uprooted or to be revived and the like, and on the future direction of the development of Japan. If the Japanese government will not stop and set right the modus operandi of tampering with the history, it is bound to traumatize the feeling between China and Japan.

　　By Sheng Xin and Sun Yulin

　　(Apr.7, PLA Daily)