Japan's latest school textbook revision suggests that, eight decades after the end of World War II, the country is still struggling to settle on a version of its past it can live with.

The approval by Japan's Ministry of Education of high school textbooks for use from 2027 — some of which question coercion in the "comfort women" system, soften accounts of forced labor and restate "territorial claims" over China's Diaoyu Islands — has provoked strong protests from China and the Republic of Korea.

Yet it is symptomatic of Japan's trajectory under the Sanae Takaichi government, which is willing to accommodate right-wing pressures that obscure historical facts, downplay wartime crimes and evade responsibility through linguistic, social and political maneuvers.

When textbooks hedge on coercion or minimize atrocities, they signal the limits of Japan's postwar reckoning. References to episodes such as the Nanjing Massacre, Unit 731 and the "comfort women" system have repeatedly been watered down.

Terms like "aggression" are replaced with neutral alternatives; militaristic expansion is framed as necessity; the notorious "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" is recast as a project of "liberation" rather than invasion. At the same time, educational narratives frequently foreground Japan's own suffering — from atomic bombings to air raids — producing a one-sided account of victimhood.

The tendencies are reinforced by deeper linguistic habits formed during and after the war. Japan's wartime vocabulary aestheticized "sacrifice" and masked violence, while postwar terminology blurred defeat. The substitution of "end of the war" for "surrender" reflects a broader effort to soften historical rupture and diffuse responsibility. Language, in this sense, becomes an instrument of memory management.

Such revisionism works through nuance rather than open denial. Replacing "invasion" with "advance", or recasting atrocities as disputed "incidents" is shifting moral responsibility. Over time, Tokyo hopes such phrasing will obscure Japan's role as a perpetrator, replacing it with the perception it was a "victim".

The implications are generational. As living memory of the war recedes, collective understanding depends increasingly on institutions — schools, media and political rhetoric — that are presenting a distorted narrative. Japan's self-perception will thus be shaped by falsehoods.

The reported case of a member of Japan's Self-Defense Forces scaling the wall of the Chinese embassy in Tokyo with a knife — now under police investigation — is evidence of a troubling domestic climate in Japan. Read that alongside textbook controversies and a more assertive military posture and one gets the drift.

Territorial disputes further complicate matters. By reiterating false claims over China's Diaoyu Islands in school materials, Japan is embedding a fixed position on "sovereignty" into its education system for future generations. When that happens, compromise becomes politically hazardous, if not impossible.

Japan's textbook revisions reinforce patterns that make regional reconciliation harder and mistrust more durable.

In the end, the issue is whether Japan can confront its darker chapters with sufficient candor to be sincerely welcomed as a member of the regional community. Until that question is settled, each new textbook will only alienate Japan further.

- Li Yang, China Daily