Children hold up placards during a protest against distortions of regional history in Japanese textbooks in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday afternoon, ahead of the announcement of the textbook screening by the Japanese Education Ministry. Seoul Envisions Long, Drawn Out Diplomatic War with Japan Japan Cannot Be Trusted with Its Own History

Besides familiar claims to Korea's Dokdo Islets, the social studies textbook also highlights disputes with Russia over the Kuril Islands and China over the Senkaku Islands. With the approval, the way is clear for the book, published by Fusosha Inc. and compiled by a group of rightwingers, to be used in Japan's middle schools from next year.

But it is not only the extreme right that is causing trouble. Textbooks published by Tokyo Shoseki, Osaka Shoseki and Nippon Shoseki -- which provide texts to 65 percent of Japanese middle school students -- also include descriptions of Dokdo as Japanese territory. In its screening of the texts, the Japanese Education Ministry -- in line with government policy -- edited passages that initially described Dokdo as a “disputed region” to read, “Takeshima [Dokdo’s Japanese name], which is illegally occupied by Korea."

The Korean government said it found 37 instances where "existing distortions were kept as is or made worse.” The Fusosha text in the new edition just approved adds a chapter titled “Japan and Korea’s Modernization”, which gives the impression that Korea has its occupier to thank for its modenization.

A Korean government committee met Tuesday to discuss a forceful response to entries concerning Dokdo. But it decided not to push for corrections of distorted regional history but instead join hands with Japanese civic groups to stop Japanese schools from adopting biased texts.

The Foreign Ministry expressed "serious concern" over the Dokdo claims, adding, “The texts unfortunately include content that rationalizes and beautifies the mistakes of the past, and we deplore this.”

But Seoul also pointed out eight areas of improvement, including deleted reference to Korea’s Shilla and Baekje kingdoms as "Japanese tributary states." It noted with approval that “more than a few textbooks aim at relatively objective [historical] descriptions.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )