Korea to make textbook protest

Nanking Massacre: Said to be "nothing like a holocaust"

South Korea's ambassador to Japan - recalled to Seoul last week amid a row over a controversial Japanese history textbook - has returned to Tokyo to deliver a formal protest.

I will deliver our people's deep concerns through every channel

Choi Sang-ryong

Ambassador Choi Sang-ryong is carrying a letter from South Korea's foreign minister to be delivered to his Japanese counterpart.

The letter calls on Tokyo to revise the contents of the textbook, which critics say glosses over Japan's wartime aggression.

Choi carried back a letter

Japanese officials have said the book has already been revised to take account of concerns.

South Korean officials have expressed the hope that the issue will not upset efforts by both countries to co-host next year's World Cup soccer finals.

'Distorting' history

Seoul has said the school history book, set for circulation next year, has material "rationalising and glorifying Japan's past wrongdoings".

Protestors in Seoul burn the Japanese flag

South Korea is also particularly angered that there is no reference in the textbooks to the 100,000 "comfort women" forced to serve as sex slaves, many of whom were Korean.

China, Taiwan and North Korea have also condemned the Japanese textbook saying it distorts history.

South Korea, which was occupied by Japan for 35 years, also plans to raise the issue with the United Nations Human Rights committee.

Revisions of text

The original draft reportedly described the "unopposed" annexation of the Korean peninsula as "necessary for Japan's security".

Original draft: Contentious issues

Dismissed the Nanjing Massacre as "nothing like a holocaust"

Described invasion of Korean peninsula as an unopposed annexation, necessary for Japan's security

Alleged Japan's wartime rule prepared Asian countries for independence from European colonial masters

It also referred to the 1937 Nanjing Massacre - in which some 300,000 civilians were slaughtered - as "nothing like a holocaust".

The books were written by a group of nationalist historians, who argue that existing texts go too far to accommodate the views of Japan's former adversaries.

The revised version is reported to acknowledge that an "armed struggle" took place in the Korean peninsula, and to have removed the attempt to play down the Rape of Nanjing.

The Education Ministry said that, in all, more than 130 revisions had been made to the text.

Japan's wartime past, and its unwillingness to address complaints, is still a sensitive subject in a number of Asian countries that were invaded by Japan earlier this century.