重慶國民政府の歷史敎科書

Abstract

This article, based on the history of prior conflicts between Japan and China over “anti-Japan” textbooks, concentrates on the history of Chinese elementary school textbooks, which had often become the focus of conflicts, and finally attempts to confirm the way Japan was viewed in a history textbook compiled by the Chongqing Nationalist Government during the Sino-Japanese War. First, this article confirms the points of dispute between Japan and China as a pre-history of the “anti-Japan” textbook in question. Secondly, through a consideration of the course curriculum, the editions and the editors of the Chongqing textbook, I present an overview of the textbook project. Lastly, I compare this history textbook with the preceding history textbooks compiled by private publishers and the textbooks compiled by the puppet governments of Japan in the same period. As a result, I was able to clarify the following points. First, the history textbook compiled by the Chongqing government during wartime criticized Japan’s “aggression” without hesitation, emphasized Japan’s calculation, and engraved the idea that the war against Japan was the final chapter in a national revolutionary history by positioning victory over Japan as the ultimate goal of the National Revolution. In addition, since the revolutionary history described therein was in fact the national history of the “Chinese people, ” the war against Japan was also specially mentioned as a sacred war for “the revival of the Chinese people.” Secondly, the view of Japan, which served as the broad framework for the Chongqing government’s history textbook, could not be found in the other textbooks compiled by the preceding private publishers or the puppet governments in the same period. The textbooks compiled by the puppet governments, which likely embodied Japan’s views, copied much of their content from the textbooks of private publishers, therefore they were far from being able to fully develop their own point of view on Japan or history. Lastly, the Chongqing government’s pre-determined view of a harmonious history in its textbook made it possible to excise or, in extreme cases, distort facts that did not fit into its framework. Ultimately, I was unable to discern a sincere stance in the Chongqing government’s history textbook to recognize “historical facts.”