Hypocrisy

Yes, Japan deserves some heat for a new history textbook that glosses over some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century; namely, the massacres in Nanking and the abuse of comfort women in South Korea. Still, when I see Chinese protestors carrying signs that read, "Face up to history!" I have to laugh. After spending a year in China, after talking to students of all ages, I know this much: facing up to history is the last thing the Chinese do.

Here's more on China's Selective Memory:

Truth in history is an interesting standard for great-power status. One intriguing response would be for Japan to embrace it and suggest politely that, if China wants to keep its Security Council seat, it ought to do the same.   

For example, according to a report by Howard W. French in the New York Times last December, many textbooks don't mention that anyone died at what the outside world knows as the 1989 massacre of student demonstrators near Tiananmen Square. One 1998 text notes only that "the Central Committee took action in time and restored calm." Anyone who challenges the official fiction is subject to harsh punishment, including beatings, house arrest, or imprisonment.    

...And if the 300,000 victims of the Nanjing Massacre are slighted in some Japanese textbooks, what of the 30 million Chinese who died in famines created by Mao Zedong's lunatic Great Leap Forward between 1958 and 1962? No mention in Chinese texts; didn't happen.

Well, you might say, how a nation treats its internal history is less relevant to its qualifications for the Security Council than whether it teaches its children honestly about its wars with other nations. A dubious proposition, but no matter; as the Times found in its review of textbooks, Chinese children do not learn of their nation's invasion of Tibet (1950) or aggression against Vietnam (1979). And they are taught that Japan was defeated in World War II by Chinese Communist guerrillas; Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima and Midway don't figure in.