Civic Groups of Korea, China, and Japan Make Joint Efforts

Civic groups to correct the distortions of history of Korea, China, and Japan announced on Friday that they will make joint efforts to cope with distortions in history textbooks by Japan, after closing the “Seoul Meeting of the Third Forum for History Recognition and East Asian Peace” which started on August 8.

The groups include the Civilian Movement for Correcting Distorted Textbooks from Korea, the Tokyo Network from Japan, and the Institute of Passing History Research at the Academy of Social Science from China. They held a press conference in Cecil Restaurant at Jeong-dong, Joong-gu, Seoul, on the same day where they said that they “will make joint efforts to prevent the textbooks published by a Japanese rightist organization, the ‘Group to Make New History Textbooks,’ from being selected by some schools in Tokyo, Japan.”

Yoshida Koichi, president of Tokyo Network, said in the conference, “There is a good possibility that some junior high and high schools that start in April of next year will choose these textbooks published by the Fusosha, a company made by the Group to Make New History Textbooks. Their goal is to be selected by more than 10 percent of schools, and they currently are focusing their marketing efforts on new schools as the approval period of textbooks by the Japanese Education Authority approaches.”

Yoshida said, “Ishihara Shintaro, the Tokyo mayor, recently praised a school openly for its selection of this textbook.” He urged, “The Seoul Metropolitan Government, who is in a sister city relationship with Tokyo, should send a petition requesting not to select textbooks that distort history and damage the friendly relationship between Korea and Japan.”

The Fusosha Textbook Publishing Company described myths as if real to emphasize the Japanese emperor worship and praised the “Great East Asia War” to beautify Japan’s invasion of Asian countries. The company received criticisms for distorting ancient history and dropping comfort women issues in the 2001 Japanese government’s inspection for history textbooks.

Those who came from the three countries’ civic and academic groups to attend this Seoul meeting decided to have a joint strategy meeting to stop the textbooks by the Japanese rightist group within this year, while publishing an auxiliary textbook on the joint history, of which some 200 pages of draft has already been written, on April 2005 when the Japanese textbooks will be inspected by the authority for approval.

Se-Jin Jung mint4a@donga.com