Japanese minister fuels Sino-Japanese spat

Chinese textbooks are “extreme” in their interpretation of history, Japan’s foreign minister said today.

It came a day after China’s president demanded Tokyo do more to improve relations damaged by new Japanese school textbooks that allegedly whitewash wartime atrocities.

However, despite the criticism, Nobutaka Machimura hailed a meeting between Chinese President Hun Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Indonesia, saying it has paved the way for the two Asian powers to start repairing battered ties that have led to violent anti-Japanese protests across China.

“From the perspective of a Japanese person, Chinese textbooks appear to teach that everything the Chinese government has done has been correct,” Machimura said on a TV Asahi talk show.

“There is a tendency toward this in any country, but the Chinese textbooks are extreme in they way they uniformly convey the ’our country is correct’ perspective.”

The foreign minister also defended Japan’s textbooks, saying they don’t gloss over Japan’s invasion of other Asian countries as alleged, and expressed dismay with the lopsided view of history taught in Chinese schools.

Tokyo’s approval of new school textbooks that China claims play down wartime atrocities sparked weeks of anti-Japanese protests by tens of thousands of people across China. Chinese also are upset over Japan’s campaign for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.