Correction Proposal for Japanese History Textbooks Is Delivered Today

The government decided to hand over an official proposal for the correction of 30 controversial issues in the Japanese history textbooks to the Japanese government through the Japanese Ambassador Terada Terusuke today.

The Millennium Democratic Party’ (MDP) s special committee on the revision of the Japanese history textbook(committee chair Park Sang-chun) and the government special committee (committee leader Kim Sang-kwo, Vice-Minister of Education and Human Resources) held the government-party meeting in the MDP president’s room yesterday. They affirmed the correction proposal, which emphasizes the Japan’s cruelty, by highlighting the issue of the Japanese military sexual slavery as a separate item for the correction.

In the meeting, MDP omitted some of the contents unrelated with Korean history, which they said may unnecessarily fuel the Japanese public sentiment. However, it was reported that they would demand the correction of the mild expression to the stronger description in regard to Japan’s colonial atrocities.

Park Sang-chun said, in the government-party meeting last week, most of the proposal contents which the party’s special committee demanded were accepted. The correction proposal was finally affirmed after the revision of some inappropriate expressions and weak points of the proposal today.

Kim Young-Sik spear@donga.com