Japanese nationalist group disparages Koreans

Voices disparaging Koreans and Chinese were raised during a symposium organized by the Japanese Association for History Textbook Reform, which authored the textbook based on distorted historical facts that has stirred up such controversy. At the gathering held at the Bunkyo Civic Center in Tokyo Saturday a guest speaker, Huang Wenxiong, a critic from Taiwan, said that Korean and Chinese scholars lacked the capacity for reviewing Japanese textbooks because their academic ability was very low. Nishio Kanji, leader of the group, told the audience that he agreed with Huang`s statement that Korean and Chinese scholars had no qualifications and were not competent academically to investigate or evaluate Japanese textbooks.

A cartoonist and a member of the association board, Kobayashi Yoshinori, said it would be of no use for Japan to express grievances to Korea and China as democracy and freedom of the press did not exist in the two countries, where only emotions reigned that ruled out rational argument.

Taking issue with the interventionist attitude of Korea and China would be a childish response and Japan should openly and justifiably meddle in the internal affairs of the two nations if they did the same to Japan, said Nishibe Susumu, another board member of the group. The association made it clear that it is taking steps to sell the disputed textbook not only as a textbook but also as reading material for the general public in order to make the disputed book, which has been approved by the Tokyo government, available to a wider audience.

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Shim Kyu-Sun ksshim@donga.com