The New York Times reported that Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan, speaking in Japanese at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, used an imperative voice usually reserved for children to tell his Japanese counterpart, Makiko Tanaka, to "Stop that!" in reference to the prime minister's planned visit to the shrine. The incident was played up in the Japanese media, which portrayed it as an example of how Tokyo is being pushed around by its larger neighbor.

"If Prime Minister [Junichiro] Koizumi visits Yasukuni Shrine, it will undoubtedly spark strong anger among the people of China," Tang told Tanaka. The Japanese foreign minister subsequently said she advised Koizumi not to follow through on the scheduled visit later this month.

The shrine honors the 2.5 million Japanese war dead and contains the remains of 14 Japanese convicted as war criminals, including Japanese generals executed by the Allied powers.

The textbook has been condemned for making gross historical distortions, such as covering up the brutal occupations of China and Korea and omitting mention of the sex slavery system run by the Japanese military during World War II in which more than 100,000 women, most of whom came from Korea, but also from Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, China, and other countries occupied by Japan, were forced into serving as "comfort women" for the Japanese military.

So far the Japanese government has refused to either withdraw the textbook or to make 35 changes requested by the south Korean and other Asian governments. This, combined with Koizumi's planned visit to the war shrine, has led to condemnations and increased diplomatic tensions in the region. The south Korean government recalled its ambassador to Japan in April, began scaling back on military and cultural exchanges, as well as canceling greater openings for Japanese goods in its domestic market.

"The Japanese authorities should lend an ear to the voices of the Asian people who suffered immeasurable damage due to the Japanese imperialists in the past," said a statement cited from a north Korean newspaper by press reports. The refusal to make the corrections, explains the paper, is intended "to cover up Japan's past crimes and...infuse the idea of aggression into the younger Japanese for overseas aggression."

According to a Financial Times article, the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the organization responsible for compiling the book, claims as one of its principles the goal to "portray Japan and the Japanese with dignity" and reject the "self-denigrating view" of Japan's national history. The production of the book has been supported by sections of the ruling class in Japan. Supporters of the book society include companies such as Fujitsu, Canon, Mitsubishi Heavy industries, and Nomura Securities, among others.

One of the authors of the textbook defended it by saying "that much of the so-called Japanese war atrocities were exaggerations created by wartime propaganda." The article in the Times highlights a reference in the textbook to the Nanjing massacre, where more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were murdered by the Japanese military, as "nothing like the Nazi Holocaust."

Critics of the textbook inside Japan have warned that this nationalist campaign is dangerous and point to the Japanese government's aims of playing a greater military role in the area as one of the reasons this campaign is being promoted now.

Masao Hamabayashi, an opponent of the textbook and professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, told the Financial Times that the textbook "places emphasis on pride in the nation, service to the nation and obligation of national defense by giving exaggerated descriptions of international tensions and by glorifying war and distorting historical facts. Their intention is to mobilize Japanese people and children into future wars."

Many in Japan have sought to distance themselves from the government's decision. The Osaka school district announced that 41 out of its 45 school districts will not adopt the history textbook for the next school year. The decision came after the education board council in the Tokachi region had adopted a similar position.

Meanwhile, eight Chinese women have filed a suit with a Tokyo district court against the Japanese government for being deprived of their honor when they were forced to serve as sex slaves for the Japanese military. They are demanding 3 million yen in compensation and an official public apology from the Japanese government.

Similar claims have been filed in U.S. courts on behalf of hundreds of Asian women under a federal law that gives them the right to file federal suits for crimes committed in violation of international law.

The Bush administration has sought to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that the court does not have jurisdiction over the case and that Japan has already satisfied war claims through treaties signed decades ago.

"No treaty can be used to pardon slavery, which violates many international treaties," said Yang Li , a lawyer in a suit filed in a California court on behalf of thousands of Asian men who were forced to work as slaves for Japanese companies during World War II. The Chinese, Filipino, and Korean older men worked in coal mines owned by the Mitsubishi company near Nagasaki in Japan. A New York Times article reported that some 50,000 Chinese were used as slaves in Japan and 10 million more worked as forced laborers for Japanese companies in northwestern China, which was occupied by Japan for 14 years.

"I am old and I may die soon," said one of the men in the Times article, "but I have asked my son and grandson to continue until this is resolved."  
 
 
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