An overreaction South Korea is partially right when it says Japan's new junior high school textbooks distort history. But that hardly justifies Seoul's decision to recall its ambassador and cancel an annual friendship association meeting in retaliation.
Japan is a sovereign nation.
It isn't required to put a Korean spin on Japanese history. They are upset because the books describe some invasions as expansions of the war and that they argue Japanese rule helped occupied countries by introducing economic progress. The Nanking incident was horrible, of course. But if the Japanese choose to play down those incidents, rather than engaging in national self- flagellation for something that happened in a previous generation, that is their right. Besides, in some cases, occupied countries did benefit.