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Chief cabinet secretary says government apology for replacing ÔaggressionÕ with ÔadvanceÕ was mistake

Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo stated that there is no such fact that the government ordered textbook editors to replace ÒaggressionÓ with ÒadvanceÓ in history textbooks on a Fuji TV program aired on April 2.

Abe said, ÒIt was a serious mistake for the then chief cabinet secretary to apologize to China and Korea in 1982 for instructing a rewrite.Ó
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Abe was speaking about Chief Cabinet Secretary Miyazawa KiichiÕs statement on August 26, 1982 that promised to correct the inappropriate history textbook, referring to the remorse for the wartime past expressed by the Japanese government in two communiques Japan issued with the Republic of Korea in 1965 and with China in 1972.
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The Miyazawa statement said, ÒFrom the perspective of building friendship and goodwill with neighboring countries, Japan will pay due attention to these criticisms and make corrections as the governmentÕs responsibility.Ó

It is a serious matter that an incumbent chief cabinet secretary has denied the promise which Japan had made to its Asian neighbors. The Abe statement amounts to throwing away the governmentÕs remorse for the war of aggression and will put up a major obstacle to friendly relations between Japan and its neighbor nations.

AbeÕs assertion negating the government role in forcing history textbooks to be rewritten is not anything new. It has been advocated for many years by right-wing media such as the monthly ÒShokun!Ó and the Sankei Shimbun.

However, the fact is that ever since the 1950s, the government revised the guidelines for school teaching and ordered textbook companies and writers to describe JapanÕs past ÒaggressionÓ against China as an ÒadvanceÓ into China to gloss over the war of aggression.

In the 1980s, the education ministry demanded that the March 1, 1919 Independence Movement of Korea be described as a ÒriotÓ and ordered editors to delete the description of the history of forcibly bringing Koreans to Japan for forced labor.

Although Abe insists that the media falsely reported that the government had ordered the rewrite, it is clear that textbook publishers exercised self-restraint at the governmentÕs urging. The problem is the Liberal Democratic PartyÕs attitude of glossing over the historical fact of the Japanese war of aggression.

In dealing with the dispute over Yasukuni Shrine and other historical questions, the Japanese government must immediately stop justifying the war of aggression and implement its promise to get its stated remorse over JapanÕs Òcolonial rule and aggressionÓ to other Asian countries to be sincerely reflected in textbooks.
- Akahata, April 6, 2006





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