Tokyo - In a move that has angered South Korea and earned a sharp rebuke from China, Japan yesterday rejected calls for major revisions to a history textbook that critics say whitewashes Tokyo's wartime atrocities. South Korea warned of tougher action to protest against the Japanese government's approval of the junior high school text, while Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Ms Zhang Qiyue, expressed "extreme regret" and "strong dissatisfaction" over the decision. Ms Zhang said China had already taken up the matter with Japan, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"This so-called textbook written by leftist forces is aimed at dressing up and denying the war of aggression launched by Japanese militarism, and its falsehoods are known the world over," she said.
In Seoul, riot police held off demonstrators outside the Japanese embassy. Scores of demonstrators chanted anti-Japanese slogans and charged a wall of police shields around the embassy.