Seoul critical of Tokyo's revision of history books

The Ministry of Education has published evaluations of textbooks indicating 14 passages "not in conformity" with the 2021 resolution which the government defined as inappropriate regarding the imperial army's role in forced labor and "comfort women". Protests by Korean civil society: Commitment to honest treatment of historical facts disregarded.

Tokyo (AsiaNews) - In few places in the world as in East Asia is contemporary history experienced as an element of the present. In particular, the memory of the Second World War and the Japanese imperial government is still a topic that arouses very strong feelings in the collective consciousness of some countries in the region, and the historical revisionism that snakes through some circles in Tokyo does not help the process of reconciliation almost 77 years after the end of that terrible interlude.

Last week, the Japanese Ministry of Education published the results of its evaluations of textbooks for the school year that will begin in the spring of next year. Attracting particular attention were the volumes published for the history-geography and civics classes, particularly the passages on Japanese colonial rule in Korea.

The two thorniest topics are those of Korean laborers forced into forced labor in Japan during the World War and comfort women (better known as comfort women), a euphemism by which victims of the state program that provided prostitutes to the imperial army are referred to.

The book publishers revised the wording of the passages describing these topics to fit a resolution passed by the cabinet in April 2021 following a parliamentary question. In that resolution, the cabinet determined that it was inappropriate to describe Korean workers present in Japan during the war as "forcibly brought in" and that references to the imperial army should be removed from any involvement in the recruitment of comfort women.

Thanks to a reform introduced by Shinzo Abe in 2014, the government has a major influence on textbook publishing choices. Essentially, when writing volumes for use in classrooms, publishers must adhere to the government's adopted official position and include it in the information submitted.

In addition to the changes already made by publishers, the ministry committee identified 14 other passages that did not comply with the resolution. One publisher expressed concern about the text changes, noting that "in order to receive approval [for use in classrooms], we will have to make revisions in line with what the evaluation committee said."

Reactions have been strong in Korea, where civil society has deprecated the removal of the army's role in the Korean comfort women affair from textbooks. The Asia Peace and History Education Network accused the Japanese government of reneging on commitments made in 1993 in the Kono Yohei Declaration, in which Japan acknowledged its responsibility and used school teaching to "deal honestly with historical facts" and to "take seriously the lessons of history."

While a new government will soon take office in Seoul, the issue of historical memory and Japanese revisionism thus continues to dominate relations between the two Asian neighbors tense.