Fast sales for Japanese history textbook

China and South Korea hope further textbook revisions would be made

TOKYO, Japan -- A controversial school textbook that glosses over Japan's wartime atrocities is selling out in bookshops.

The textbook, written by nationalist historians, has strained Japan's diplomatic ties with South Korea and China, which are demanding extensive revisions.

"It seems there are many customers whose interest has been piqued by the heavy news coverage surrounding the book," an official of major bookseller Maruzen said.

Maruzen sold out of its first 200 copies and had placed an order for 300 more.

At one Tokyo branch of another major bookseller, Kinokuniya, some 1,300 copies have been sold since Friday.

Although the Japanese education ministry had approved the textbook months earlier, it had asked textbook publisher Fuso-sha to defer the sale until after August 15.

By then, local boards of education would have decided which textbooks for students aged 13 to 15 could be used next school year.

Fuso-sha pushed through with the sale Friday, saying it would give Japanese citizens the chance to judge the textbook's contents for themselves.

A ministry official said there are no laws or ordinances to block the publisher's move.

Tenuous ties

Some revisions were made before the textbook's approval, but the Japanese government has resisted pressure to further revise it, saying it does not represent the country's official view of history.

South Korean children demonstrate against the Japanese textbook

South Korea said it is seeking revisions to avoid reopening old wounds and damaging friendship between the two Asian neighbors.

Korean sentiment toward Japan has deteriorated, according to a graduate school student of Asia-Pacific studies in the Wednesday edition of The Korea Herald News.

"Japanese are again dangerous, in the eyes of Koreans and seen as unwilling to learn from the past -- whereas the Japanese now consider Koreans to be vindictive and stubborn. The gap in perceptions of each other seems to have widened more than ever."

Japan invaded China and South Korea in the first half of the last century, during which the military aggressors took thousands of local women as sex slaves, known as "comfort women."

During its 1910-45 colonization of South Korea, Japan also forced the locals to pledge loyalty to its emperor and use its language.

The textbook suggests that South Korea benefited from Japanese colonization because of the development of railways and manufacturing industries.

Reuters contributed to this report.