Tokyo - South Korea summoned home its ambassador to Tokyo yesterday as passions flared over Japan's approval of a controversial history textbook, which Korea and China say glosses over brutal aspects of Japan's wartime aggression.
Protesters burned a Japanese effigy and Japanese goods in Seoul in any angry response to the book, written by nationalist academics and approved by Japan's Education Ministry last week, while officials in Japan said they hoped the issue would not harm ties. But despite assurances by Tokyo's Foreign Ministry that the book is no reflection of the country's official view, the text has opened up old wounds in a region still sensitive to the treatment of Japan's wartime colonial aggression.