I wonder if anyone else was as puzzled as I was by the fact that the contents of a Japanese textbook could cause such offence to the Chinese as to lead to a major diplomatic incident and much civil unrest in China including attacks on Japanese citizens and property.

China's rapid growth is rapidly threatening Japan's economic hegemony in the region and I came to the conclusion that this was another example of the recent political power games, such as the objection to Japan becoming a member of the UN Security Council and the passing of the anti-secession law against Taiwanese independence. Although I am sure there is more than an element of political exploitation of the issue by the Chinese government, a little historical research caused me to understand the Chinese side of the story a little better.

The Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) resulted in the deaths of over 20 million Chinese, the vast majority of whom were non-combatants. The Japanese imperial military philosophy of the time taught troops to value human life very cheaply - their own lives were expendable to protect the glory of the Emperor, and Chinese lives were in relation as good as worthless.

This attitude led to numerous atrocities in the war, culminating in The Rape of Nanjing. Following a bitter campaign to win Shanghai, the troops (many of whom were reservists) were expecting to return home to their families. Instead they were ordered to take Nanjing. By the time they reached the city, the beleaguered forces of Chiang Kai-Shek had already largely moved out, and the Japanese forces were able to walk in.

In the following six weeks of December 1937 and January 1938 an estimated 250,000 Chinese were slaughtered, many in horrific ways. Tens of thousands of women were raped. There are reports of people being flayed alive, babies being thrown in the air and caught on bayonets, pregnant women bayoneted through their stomachs, the list goes on. Many victims were ritually beheaded, and contemporary reports mention that a number of soldiers were left physically exhausted by the number of beheadings they had carried out. Western observers reported on the nonchalance of the soldiers as they massacred Chinese civilians at will (real audio interview with Iris Chang, author of The Rape on Nanking).



Under the right circumstances and social conditioning such actions are unfortunately familiar. Eyewitness reports from Berlin in 1945, Rwanda and Srebrenica to give just three examples have many sickening similarities.

There has been much debate in Japan over the veracity of the death toll and the details of the atrocities, but most independent historians are convinced of the extent of the massacre. Nationalist right-wing politicians and activists however have continued to try to push their revisionist histories into the mainstream, infiltrating the Society for the Creation of New Textbooks which was the source of the books which have caused the recent controversy. In Japan all textbooks have to be approved by the Ministry of Education, who made many changes to the books in question but not enough to prevent the ire of the Chinese.

In defence of the Japanese, the textbook has only been taken up by less than 1 in 2500 schools in Japan, but it is the way the issue has been handled by the politicians which has caused the issue to spiral out of control. In spite of Koizumi's efforts at damage limitation, nationalists have stepped up to the plate to downplay the massacre and other atrocities, and government ministers have symbolically visited the Yasukuni shrine - a controversial site which honours the war dead, including known war criminals, in the context of a justification of Japan's imperial past.

If Germany started printing textbooks downplaying the Holocaust there would quite rightly be uproar in Europe and the US. Japan's approach should therefore not be to try to justify the act, and should instead be to apologise unreservedly for approving the textbooks in question. A better face-saving approach may be to push for a review of both Japanese and Chinese textbooks by a panel of representatives from both countries. I am sure that there are at least as many misrepresentations of Japan in Chinese textbooks. Measures need to be taken to remove the heat from the situation, not intensify it. Such steps forward can only come from better mutual understanding, starting at school level.