By Lu Donghong

A "War Atrocities History Exhibition" organized by Japanese civil groups was held in Yokohama, Japan, from August 8 to 15. Focusing on Japan's wartime aggression during WWII, the exhibition showcases historical materials related to the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731, comfort women, and other topics. History should serve as the best textbook. However, eight decades after WWII ended, under the deliberate efforts of Japan's right-wing conservative forces, the narrative of WWII history in Japanese textbooks increasingly deviates from the truth, blatantly challenging historical justice and human conscience.

Since the 1950s, Japanese textbooks have undergone three systematic regressions. The first round of distortions in 1955 saw new textbooks remove critical accounts of the Pacific War, avoiding references to Japan's invasion of China. The second round in the 1980s altered the phrase "invasion of North China" to "advanced into North China," thereby providing a veneer of legitimacy to militaristic aggression. The third round, from the 1990s to the present, has been even more egregious. It not only glorifies the invasion as a "self-defensive operation" aimed at "liberating Asia," but also re-characterizes forced labor as "participation," while adding assertions that the Diaoyu Dao is Japan's "inherent territory."

Starting April this year, new textbooks have been gradually adopted in junior high schools nationwide in Japan, with three main troubling trends in their portrayal of the war.

The first is the blurring and stigmatization of significant historical events. Currently, about 80% of the textbooks used in Japanese junior high schools are published by two major publishers, namely Tokyo Shoseki  and Teikoku-Shoin . Both of them seriously downplay Japan's wartime aggression and liability. Regarding the Nanjing Massacre, Teikoku-Shoin merely refers to it as the Nanjing Incident, avoiding mention of the identities of the perpetrators. The textbooks compiled by Tokyo Shoseki include a brief footnote on the Nanjing Massacre, but go so far as to claim that the number of victims remains "undetermined and still under study," blatantly denying the internationally recognized historical facts. Concerning the July 7th Incident (Lugou Bridge Incident) in 1937, the Tokyo Shoseki version textbook New Social History describes it as an "armed conflict between Japanese and Chinese forces," while the Reiwa Shoseki version National History Textbook (7th Edition) distorts the Japanese invasion as a "conflict between both sides," attempting to shift the blame for instigating the war onto China.

Second, the overall narrative of the war has been deliberately fragmented in terms of textbook structure. Most Japanese history textbooks forcibly separate the invasion of China from 1931 to 1945 and the Pacific War, narrating them as distinct China-Japanese War and Pacific War events. This creates a false historical view of a "passive response to war," downplaying Japan's proactive initiation of aggressive war and its subjective malevolence.

The third is that the strategy of the right-wing camp has shifted towards promoting an overall rightward tilt of textbooks. Whereas previously Japanese right-wing forces focused on expanding the adoption of extremely right-leaning textbooks, they now aim to push for the overall rightward shift of all textbooks, which has become the core issue of the current textbook controversy in Japan. During the textbook approval process, right-wing influence has grown steadily. Some textbook authors maintain close ties with right-wing groups, resulting in politically biased content that makes it difficult to fairly and objectively restore historical truth.

One of the reasons behind the issues with Japanese textbooks lies in their unique review system. The mechanism whereby private publishers first compile and then submit textbooks for review was originally intended to ensure objectivity in history education. However, political interference by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has degenerated into a form of "historical filtering." In 2021, the Japanese government labeled the term "military comfort women" as an "inappropriate expression" and forcibly ordered revisions to already published textbooks. This manipulation of the WWII narrative has turned textbooks into a fertile ground for right-wing forces to infiltrate and distort historical understanding.

History cannot be tampered with and justice will not be absent. The issue of Japanese textbooks concerns not only the accuracy of historical understanding but also the stability of the regional security landscape. Japan should face up to history, abandon its erroneous historical views, cease its wrongful practices regarding textbooks, take concrete actions to apologize to the peoples of victimized nations, and assume the historical responsibility it ought to bear. Only in this way can Japan regain the respect and trust of the international community.

(The author is from Renmin University of China)