Beijing Seizes Japan Textbooks for Content

Posted on June 28, 2005 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

By STEPHAN GRAUWELS, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 28,10:25 AM ET

BEIJING - Textbooks headed for a Japanese school in China were seized by customs officials who objected to the way maps in the books depicted the Chinese mainland and rival Taiwan, an official said Tuesday.

The maps showed the mainland and the island in different colors, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, indicating that Beijing was concerned this might make Taiwan seem like a separate country.

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949, but the communist government in Beijing claims the self-governed island as part of its territory and rejects any suggestion that it is a sovereign nation.

"The Japanese textbooks showed China and Taiwan in different colors," Liu said at a regular news briefing. "The 'one-China principle' is paramount, so it is legitimate for China's customs to handle this according to the law."

The 180 books had been bound for a Japanese school in the northeastern city of Dalian.

Japanese news reports said Chinese officials also objected to the books because they identified a set of islands in the East China Sea as part of Japanese territory.

Beijing and Tokyo have a long-running feud over the islands — called Diaoyu by China and Senkaku by Japan — which are believed to lie near oil and gas resources.

Japan's Kyodo News agency reported that the customs office in Dalian demanded the school pay a $120 fine and present an explanation to Chinese authorities. It wasn't known if the fine was paid.

Japan-China relations have been strained by a separate dispute over Japanese textbooks that critics say minimize Tokyo's wartime aggression. In April, protests erupted across China over that dispute and Tokyo's campaign for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050628/ap_on_re_as/china_japan