This dispute is obviously not just about teaching ‘facts’. China which complains about the misrepresentation of the Nanjing massacre does not teach about the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. [1]  Of course the facts should be taught but what facts? The New History Textbook at the center of the dispute only has 12 pages on the whole of WWII, if the pictures are taken out there are only 7 pages left, of which three are devoted to the European theatre. [2] It should therefore not come as a surprise that some things are missed out.  It should be noted that a study by Stanford professors Daniel Sneider and Gi-Wook Shin found that the main Japanese history textbooks are the least biased on the Second World War out of textbooks used in China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. [3]  [1] Bruhn, Judith, ‘The vital presence of the past’, Free Speech Debate, 7 May 2012,   [2] Inkerd, Wes, ‘The Japanese History Textbook issue’, Education in Japan community blog,  accessed 20 August 2012  [3] Sneider, Daniel, ‘Divided Memories: History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia’, Nippon.com, 29 April 2012,