By Chen Yang
The Japanese government recently announced the creation of a white paper on defense for elementary and junior high school students, which continued its cliché of smearing and accusing China on its military development and the Diaoyu Island and South China Sea issues.
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Zhao Lijian emphasized at a regular press conference on August 27 that it is not constructive at all for Japan to highlight external threats and incite confrontation among minors. The Japanese side should earnestly face up to and reflect on history, learn lessons from history, and refrain from taking wrong actions to mislead its people, especially the next generation.
The 30-page version consists of ten parts, including such false contents as “China’s military activities have caused serious concerns in the region, including Japan, and in the international community”. It slanders the Chinese Coast Guard’s normal patrol of the Diaoyu Islands as “repeated invasion of Japanese territorial sea” and “violation of international law”. The book fails to introduce to Japanese children the objective facts and is rife with ideological biases, with the aim of infusing the children with anti-China ideas at a young age.
In addition to hyping “China threats”, the version also explains why it is necessary for Japan to increase its defense budget and intensify the Japan-US alliance. Before the children have fully developed their own independent thinking, the Japanese government, through the book, is trying to fill their heads with false information and twisted facts, thus installing preconceived ideological biases on certain topics.
When Japan launched external aggressions in modern times, the Japanese government used the Imperial Rescript on Education, which upheld a historical view of “supremacy of monarchical power”, to infuse Japanese children and adolescents with militarist ideas and rave for war. In recent years, it has tried to revive the educational concept that it promoted before WWII and introduce military training subjects during WWII to school education.
The Shinzo Abe administration allowed in 2017 to include the Imperial Rescript on Education in the official curriculum, which was widely criticized in the country. Now the succeeding Yoshihide Suga administration issued a white paper on defense for children and even not disguised its intention of instigating the confrontation, which is truly unsettling. The Japanese government is covertly reviving militarist education and inculcating militarist ideas among its next generation.
Since Japan surrendered in 1945, it has never reflected on its invasive history, and some Japanese politicians have never stopped making wrong remarks denying that part of history. The essential reason is that militarist thinking has never been rooted out in Japan, but has been passed on from one generation to another in different forms and ways. Japan must earnestly draw lessons from history, sever ties with militarism, and not do anything wrong again to pass the militarist ideas on to its children that are born in a peaceful time and have benefited from it.
Editor's Note: This article is originally published on haiwainet.cn, the website of Overseas Edition of the People's Daily. It is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
