Chinese scholars said Wednesday that Japan's intention of "whitewashing" wartime history will not produce any respect from the international community neither help it become a political giant.

"It's absolutely not wise for Japan to do so in order to achieve its political aspiration," said Ma Junwei, a researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.

Among heated international protests, Japan's education ministry approved a new edition of a history textbook which was criticized as glorifying Japan's invasion of neighboring countries and covering up wartime crimes.

Ma said the friction between Japan and its neighboring countries over the issue of history textbook could be traced back to the early 1980s.

"Each time when Japan gave green light to the history textbooks with distorted wartime facts, it aroused furies and indignation from the countries it once invaded," Ma said.

Analyzing Japan's motive for frequently revising its history textbooks, Ma said Japan's action is connected with its overall development strategy.

"As the world's second largest economy, Japan is not satisfied with its current political status on the world stage and eager to shake off the guiltiness as a loser in World War II. But it didn't find a shortcut of becoming a political giant," Ma said.

"With such sentiment, Japan's rightist groups chose to take tough measures, attempting to stride over the history issues," he said.

The textbook was published by the Fuso Publishing and penned by Japan's rightist Society for History Textbook Reform. Chinese historians here said that though some 120 revisions had been made to the new textbook before it got official approval, "their nature of denying historical facts and beautifying invasion has remained unchanged."

They cited the total oblivion or ambiguous narration of the notorious Nanjing Massacre in December 1937, when the Japanese troops slaughtered more than 300,000 civilians and unarmed soldiers after taking the then Chinese capital, as a typical expression of the textbook's "deliberate distortion of history."

"The textbook issue is only one segment of the whole Japanese rightist move," said Shen Jiru, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He said once the distorted history is popularized among the Japanese public, Japan's rightist force would have few restrictions, which would undoubtedly endanger the future of Japan and the whole Asia.

Japan's new history textbook came under vehement criticism from the Chinese media. Wednesday's People's Daily published a commentary on the issue, comparing Japan with Germany in terms of their attitudes toward history issues.

The commentary said both Japan and Germany are economic giants in the world but they receive quite different responses from the international community. "One of the major reasons is the two countries' completely different attitudes toward the history of invasion."

"Such a textbook... will not bring Japan pride, trust and respect. It can only bring Japan suspicion, query, and fury," the commentary said.

Editor: Olivia