China and South Korea castigated Japan over new school textbooks that pushed its claim to disputed territories and played down its wartime conduct during the second Sino-Japanese war.

On Tuesday, South Korea summoned the Japanese ambassador to Seoul to protest the revised textbooks that detailed Japanese ownership of Takeshima, two islands that are being maintained by South Korea and are known as the Dokdo islands.

Like Us on Facebook

Reports said all of the 18 new textbooks that will be used by junior high school students in Japan next month say that the Senkaku Islands, which are being claimed by China and Japan are 'inherently' Japanese.

In 2012, Japanese firms were pressured to close their businesses in China after several protests in Chinese cities were staged over the Japanese decision to buy the Senkaku Islands from its private owners.

China lambasted Japan for altogether changing history in its social studies texts describing the Nanking massacre in December 1937 as a mere 'incident' .

China's state-run news agency, Xinhua, accused Japan's right-leaning leaders of  brainwashing the students by sanitizing Japan's past atrocities during the war in its new revised textbooks that will be studied by 12-15 year old students.

Xinhua noted that in previous textbooks, the  passage which  gave reference that Japanese troops "had killed many captives and civilians in Nanking" had been replaced with a more sanitized claim that captives and civilians "had been involved."

Reports said the extent of the massacre in Nanking continues to be the subject of debate. Chinese historians pegged the number of fatalities at 300,000 Chinese men, women, and children while Japanese conservatives insisted that the death toll was much lower.

The Nanking Massacre also known as the Rape of Nanking, was an episode in the second Sino-Japanese war of mass murder and mass rape by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking, then the capital of China.

Yoshihide Suga, Japan's spokesman, said the textbooks were designed primarily to avoid 'misunderstanding' among the students.

"Our country's textbook screening is carried out impartially and neutrally, based on professional and academic deliberations," Suga reportedly told reporters.

Reports said the textbooks' claims on the territorial islands being fought over by three countries and its revisions on the Japanese aggressions during the war have been influenced by the revisionist  movement led by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe and his counterpart, Chinese President Xi Jinping, reportedly met briefly during the APEC summit held last November in Beijing. Reports said Abe refused to hold formal talks with China and South Korea over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

TagsNanking Massacre