The education ministry on Tuesday approved 103 textbooks for use in junior high schools from next April, including a revised version of a contentious history book criticized for glossing over Japan's wartime aggression.
Authorization of the history textbook is expected to raise tensions further with South Korea and China, as it did in 2001, when the book was approved for the first time by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.
Chinese Ambassador to Japan Wang Yi visited Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi later Tuesday to protest what he described as an alteration of historical facts in the textbook, which is published by Fuso Publishing Inc.