In this article, five textbooks that were authorized in 2007 by the
Japanese government to be used in High schools’ World history classes
are examined. These textbooks, in their descriptions, all emphasize the
issues that involved both South Korea and North Korea, such as the
Korean war and the South?North Korean summit, but at the same time
they also show more references to the affairs of the Republic of
Korea(South Korea). Also, the fact that the Korean peninsula was directly
affected by the Cold war and the fact that it still remains a region of
conflict due to the North Korean nuclear crisis, and also the fact that
because of the South?North Korean summit an atmosphere of detente is
being formed, are all described.
Regarding South Korea after the Korean war, these textbooks describe
the dictator regimes that came and went in the past and the
democratization movements that ensued, yet more dominantly described
in the textbooks are the economical development of Korea, and Korea’s enlarging role in East Asia. On the other hand, regarding North Korea,
the nuclear situation is the primary issue to be described, and some of the
textbooks also mention the regime transfer made to Kim Jeong Il, and
the so?called ‘Socialist experiment’.
In terms of volume, the amount of references made to the Korean war
is roughly the same as the amount of references made to the events that
occurred after the Liberation in 1945. This clearly shows us how the
Japanese World history textbooks actually view Korea’s status in the
world. In descriptions that involve the Republic of Korea in post?Korean
war period, Korea is frequently mentioned in sections describing the Asian
region’s economic development, progress of democratization in areas, and
the countries’ ever?enlarging roles, reflecting the Japanese perception of
Korea’s status. In the meantime, the Koreans’ internal ideological
conflicts which are usually considered to have been one of the very
reasons that caused the Korean war, and also the influences from the
memories of Japanese imperialism, are not that much described in
textbooks.
Through the analysis of the Japanese World history textbooks that
were authorized in 2007, we can see that although they display the
Japanese people’s self?centric attitude, they also try to maintain a third?
party attitude, perceiving matters from an international view. At the same
time, we can also see that there are not enough efforts represented in
those textbooks to view certain events from the Koreans’ perspective, or
within the context of Korean?Japanese relationship. And we can clearly
see that, instead of listening to all the criticism launched from fellow
Asian countries such as Korea, which for a long time asked for the Japanese to sincerely regret all their wrong?doings and apologize and
compensate for the damages they inflicted upon neighboring countries in
the past, the Japanese are just hoping for a world in which Japan
maintains a leading role in the East Asian Economic community, and
manages to ram through all those criticisms from its ‘neighbors’.