Japan adopts absurd claims in textbooks

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-Yong, left, meets with Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koro Bessho at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea Friday, April 4, 2014. (Photo : AP/NEWSis)

The Japanese government Friday approved newly revised textbooks for elementary schools claiming that Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo are Tokyo’s and they are illegally occupied.

Seoul lodged a strong protest, warning the move will further strain relations between the two countries.

The foreign ministry called in Japanese Ambassador to Korea Koro Bessho.

Japan’s education ministry approved eight social studies textbooks for fifth- and sixth-graders that contain the claims.

The ministry screens and authorizes all Japanese school textbooks every four years.

Among the five textbooks that passed the screening in 2010, just one contained the specific description of Japan’s territorial claim to the islets.

Others indirectly claimed the country’s Dokdo ownership by using visual images, such as maps.

However, eight newly approved textbooks all contain these provocative arguments, with maps identifying the islets by their Japanese name of Takeshima.

Such textbooks also downplay the country’s wartime misdeeds. Only two books contain reference to the massacre of Koreans in 1923.

In its “Diplomatic Bluebook for 2014,” Japan also maintained its unilateral claims that “Dokdo historically and legally belongs to Tokyo.”

The controversial move came just days after President Park Geun-hye met Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe along with U.S. President Barack Obama in The Hague.

The meeting marked Park’s first official meeting with Abe since her inauguration more than a year ago.

The foreign and education ministries issued strong statements of condemnation.

“We express strong regret over the Japanese government’s approval of revised school books that increased its provocative level against Seoul,” said the foreign ministry in its statement.

The statement said if the Japanese government offers education for elementary students with the purpose of concealing and distorting its shameful history during the age of imperialism, it will only come at the peril of being isolated from international society.

The ministry also expressed its regret over the “Bluebook,” saying “Japan repeated ridiculous claims.”

However, Hakubun Shimomura, Japanese minister of education, said, “It is a matter of course to teach students the correct perception of the history of their homeland.” By Jun Ji-hye, The Korea Times