Japanese govt "unshirkably responsible" for history textbook compiled by right wing group: FM spokesman

China said on July 14 that the Japanese government is "unshirkably" responsible for the adoption by local authority of a history textbook to whitewash Japan's war past.

Local education authority in east Japan city of Otawara decided on Tuesday to adopt a history textbook compiled by a right-wing group at a total of 12 municipal junior high schools.

The Japan's history textbook complied by a right-wing group tries to weaken and evade the political and moral responsibility Japan should take for its aggression war," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao at a routine news conference.

"It even tries in vain to overturn its history of aggression," Liu added.

Otawara became the first municipal government in Japan to adopt history and civics studies textbooks compiled by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform and published by the Fusosha Publishing Inc.

The textbook denies Japan's militarism past and Japanese army's atrocities on Asian people, and the textbook distorts history and whitewashes Japan's aggression war as "a war of liberating Asia".

"The entry of this kind of textbook into classroom cannot but mislead and poison the Japanese juvenile," said Liu at the regular press conference.

"It must be pointed out that the Japanese government has to take unshirkable responsibility for this," underscored the spokesman.

Liu warned that the Japanese side should educate its young generation with a correct view of history in line with taking highly responsible for history and the future.

"This conduces to improving Japan's relations with its Asian neighbors and its international image, and complies with Japan's own interests," said the spokesman.

Source: Xinhua