日本と韓国の議論の広場

The Republic of Korea Foreign Ministry Spokesperson today issued the following statement on the Japanese Government’s official approval of textbooks.


The Republic of Korea expresses regret over the fact that some of the 2006 Japanese middle school textbooks that passed the Japanese Government’s approval process today still contain content that rationalizes and beautifies wrongs committed in the past and again urges Japan to exert efforts to fundamentally rectify the situation.


We understand that the Japanese Government has made some efforts in the textbook approval process; however, we have to point out that the content of the textbooks basically falls far short of universal values and historic truth. We cannot help but be concerned about whether future generations will be able to forge ahead in the direction of peace, coexistence and cooperation based on distorted history education. The Japanese Government should take the lesson seriously that distorted historical descriptions have brought on unfortunate consequences.


While the Korean Government deplores the regrettable situation in which some textbooks commit serious distortion of history on the points at issue, it also takes notes of the fact that a substantial number of textbooks tended to make relatively objective descriptions of the coercive nature of Japan’s annexation of Korea and on the resistance movement of the Korean people, among other things. We believe that this positive point attests to the existence of a sense of conscience among Japanese intellectuals and citizens and hope that this conscience will continue to be felt in the process of adopting textbooks in the future.


In particular, we express grave concern over the fact that some textbooks on citizenship and other subjects that passed official approval this time contain a claim of territorial rights to Dokdo islets. Japan’s claim to territorial rights to Dokdo islets is tantamount to justifying its past colonialist usurpation and negating the Korean people’s history of liberation. In the future, the Korean Government will take full responsibility for dealing with the Dokdo issue resolutely.


As agreed at the Korea-Japan summit talks in December last year, the Korea-Japan joint history research will continue with the aim of making progress. In the future, the research should focus on writing history books based on universal sense of conscience and the good sense of humanity as well as objectivity, going beyond mere confirmation of the different views of the two countries.