CHINA ASSAILS JAPAN'S BOOKS ON 30'S INVASION By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES (NYT) 640 words Published: July 28, 1982 PEKING, July 27 - China has mounted angry objections to what it says are distortions in new Japanese textbooks about Japan's invasion of the Chinese mainland before World War II. People's Daily and four other prominent newspapers have run commentaries complaining that Japanese youth were being spared the harsh details of Japanese aggression and wartime brutality in China. Their criticisms, which followed other expressions of Chinese unhappiness, implied that relations between China and Japan might be affected if the offending textbooks were not revised. Bitter memories remain of Japanese aggression and wartime occupation in China. People's Daily asserted Saturday that the changes approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education had aroused ''great indignation'' from the Chinese people as well as ''widespread resentment'' among the Japanese. Suzuki to Visit China The issue is potentially serious because Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki of Japan is scheduled to come to China on an official visit in the near future and the Chinese complaints, if not resolved beforehand, could presumably dominate the atmosphere. The People's Daily article reiterated earlier objections that the textbooks, which were recently screened by the Japanese Ministry of Education, euphemistically described Japan's invasion as an ''advance'' into China and said that the Japanese massacre of residents of Nanjing in 1937 occurred because the Chinese Army resisted. The Chinese seem nearly as upset that some Japanese officials have said that criticism of the textbooks amounts to interference in Japan's internal affairs. ''The censorship of textbooks by the Japanese Education Ministry is indeed Japan's internal affair, but Japan's invasion of China and Southeast Asia is certainly not its internal affair, nor can be the distortion of the history of Japanese aggression,'' People's Daily said. It called the Japanese reaction a ''hostile and insulting stand toward China.'' Similar criticism of the textbook changes also appeared in Guangming Daily, which has an intellectual following, Workers' Daily, China Youth Daily and Liberation Army Daily. Extracts of all the commentaries were circulated by the New China News Agency. 'Dream of Aggression' Liberation Army Daily, which is published for China's armed forces, is forbidden reading for foreigners, and extracts of its articles are seldom circulated. The commentary charged that the new textbooks had ''totally blurred the distinction between the aggressor and the victim of aggression.'' Other objections have been raised by leading members of four officially sanctioned ''mass'' organizations, the China-Japan Friendship Association, the China Education Society, the All-China Youth Federation and the All-China Students Federation. Underscoring the prevailing tough tone, People's Daily declared Saturday that ''the Chinese people have every reason to suspect that some people in Japan are indulging once again in their dream of aggression.'' The Communist Party organ said that ''history is an objective reality which brooks no distortion.'' It concluded by saying that ''the Japanese Education Ministry is wrong in distorting this period in the textbooks'' and also to blame for trying to justify it. ---- Suzuki Questioned on Issue TOKYO, July 27 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki has been drawn into the controversy over the rewriting of Japanese school history books, which China and other Asian nations have condemned as censorship of Japan's past military exploits. Questioned by reporters today about charges by China that the move has distorted history, Mr. Suzuki said the issue should not be allowed to develop into a diplomatic problem. |