Japanese school textbooks to state Dokdo is Japanese territory starting in 2020

Posted on : 2019-03-27 17:37 KST Modified on : 2019-03-27 17:37 KST
New books also gloss over Japan’s role in forced mobilization and labor
apanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine heads into the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Mar. 26. (Yonhap News)
apanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine heads into the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Mar. 26. (Yonhap News)

Starting next year, every social studies textbook at Japanese elementary schools will claim that Dokdo, known as Takeshima in Japan, is “an integral territory of Japan” that is being “illegally occupied by South Korea” and that “the Japanese government is issuing protests” in an attempt to fix that. Japan is also taking a major step backward on its narration of history by glossing over who was responsible for Koreans having to take on Japanese names and being forcibly mobilized into Japan’s war effort during the colonial occupation of Korea. The South Korean government protested that this would “have a negative impact on developing forward-looking relations.”

On Mar. 26, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) announced the results of its assessment of the ethics and social studies textbooks that will be distributed to elementary school classrooms starting in 2020. All six of the social studies textbooks for fifth and sixth graders that passed the assessment (three publishers participating, each publishing two textbooks) state that Dokdo is an integral territory of Japan, that it’s being illegally occupied by South Korea, and that Japan continues to protest that state of affairs.

The textbooks currently in use, which were assessed in 2014, were split between the expressions “territory of Japan” and “integral territory of Japan,” but the latest round of textbooks has unanimously adopted the latter phrase. Furthermore, while some of the current textbooks don’t say that Japan is protesting the situation, all textbooks going into use next year will. The apparent intention is to emphasize that Japan is steadily working to alter the fact that Dokdo is under Korea’s effective control.

The coverage of Dokdo in Japanese elementary school textbooks has been gradually worsening. During the 2010 textbook assessment, only one said that the island is illegally occupied by South Korea, but that language expanded to all textbooks in the 2014 assessment.

The Japanese government is particularly fixated on the expression “integral territory of Japan.” The sixth-grade social studies textbook that Japanese publisher Nihon Bunkyo submitted for review said that, “Takeshima is a territory of Japan that was incorporated into Shimane Prefecture in 1905 (Meiji Era Year 38).” But MEXT’s textbook assessment review board forced the publisher to use the expression “integral territory of Japan,” remarking that “this might create a misunderstanding for children.”

Japanese publisher Kyoiku Shuppan also used the expression “territory of Japan” in the copy of the textbook submitted before altering the expression at the request of reviewers.

The expression submitted to the assessment by Tokyo Shoseki was, “Takeshima is the integral territory of Japan, but it is being illegally occupied by South Korea.” The review board had the publisher add the phrase “Japan continues to protest that.”

Additionally, a section in Kyoiku’s textbook about Koreans being forced to adopt Japanese names and forcibly mobilized for the Japanese war effort was edited to remove the subject of the sentence – namely, the Japanese government – that had appeared in the 2014 edition of the textbook.

A map in an elementary school textbook printed by Japanese publisher Kyoiku Shuppan that identifies Doko as part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ)
A map in an elementary school textbook printed by Japanese publisher Kyoiku Shuppan that identifies Doko as part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ)

Previous position was that Japan annexed Dokdo in 1905

The claim that Dokdo is the integral territory of Japan is a gross distortion of the facts and furthermore contradicts the original position held by the Japanese government. The Japanese government has previously held that Dokdo was incorporated into Shimane Prefecture by a cabinet decision in February 1905. That would mean that Dokdo is in fact not Japan’s integral territory but territory that was annexed in 1905.

The South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded on Tuesday with a statement from its spokesperson. “The textbooks that have passed this review will be inculcating an incorrect territorial perspective based on wrong historical values to children in elementary school. The Japanese government needs to be fully aware that doing so will have a negative impact on the development of forward-looking relations between our two countries,” the statement said.

On Tuesday afternoon, South Korean Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Lee Tae-ho summoned Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine in protest.

By Cho Ki-weon, Tokyo correspondent, and Park Min-hee, staff reporter

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