Striving for common history textbooks in Northeast Asia (China, South Korea and Japan): between ideal and reality

Abstract

Three factors have contributed to the proliferation of history dialogues in East Asia in the last two decades. First, a sense of crisis over the escalating history issues since the early 1980s has prompted many individuals and governments into action. Second, the successful experience of history dialogue and reconciliation in Europe has become an inspiration for many in East Asia. Third, increasing regional economic integration since the end of the Cold War has greatly facilitated cross-national projects including dialogues about history. Beginning with the controversy about Japanese textbook screening in 1982, the region has been plagued by so-called “history problems” – divergent interpretations about Japanese military and colonial expansion in modern times. Although the Japanese government agreed to take the sentiments of neighboring countries into consideration, such measures failed to satisfy Japan’s neighbors and increasingly created a domestic backlash in Japan. Statements by Japanese politicians denying Japan’s past aggression, official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine where convicted Class A war criminals are among the honored repeatedly escalated into diplomatic confrontations in East Asia. The sense of crisis reached a new level in 2001. That year, a Japanese group known as the Society for Making New Textbooks, formed in reaction to what they considered to be “masochistic tendencies” in Japanese history textbooks, published its own version aimed at restoring pride among Japanese youth. It either cast doubt on or s imply omitted accounts of Japan’s wartime atrocities. After undergoing mandated revisions, this textbook was approved by Japan’s Ministry of Education for use in middle schools. This event, regarded as an indication that Japan was turning to the Right, caused consider able alarm in Japan itself but even more so in China and Korea. Many Japanese were joined by Chinese and Koreans in petitioning against its adoption by Japanese schools. In the end, only 0.039 percent of Japanese schools accepted this textbook. Still, the approval of this textbook in Japan was a turning po int. Calls for greater jo int efforts to combat rising nationalism in Japan gained support in East Asia.4