In reply to Sven and Earl:

Well, we shall have to see what happens to the textbooks! I wouldn't think there is any chance whatsoever of the LDP taking legal action against textbook publishers (after all, it is the Ministry that is supposed to decide whether a textbook conforms sufficiently to the FLE - if the Ministry judges that it does, what grounds could there be for a court to judge otherwise, especially since courts upheld the approval process against Ienaga?). The singing of the national anthem is quite different in this sense, because it concerns staff refusing to follow educational directives (the equivalent would be if teachers refused to use a certain textbook, I suppose).
I am quite prepared to believe that LDP politicians might try to influence publishers directly, but I am less convinced about whether they will have success.
Publishers will be thinking about the market and whether changes will positively or negatively affect their market share. And the point about the struggle over content regarding Okinawa actually supports my view rather than Sven's, I think. Sven says that Abe has a record of influencing textbook content. No. He and other LDP and allied figures might have a record of trying to influence content. But in this case, such attempts failed. Why? For various reasons, perhaps, but one may have been the public opposition that Sven notes. As I wrote, this is not the 1960s - it is just no longer that easy for nationalists to get their way.

Nor do I agree that worries about textbook adoption simply resulted in publishers either cutting controversial material or losing market share. This is discussed in detail in my recent article. ('Japanese Colonialism and the Asia-Pacific War in Japan's History
Textbooks: changing representations and their causes', Modern Asian Studies 47: 2 (March 2013), pp. 542-580.) The textbook that gained most market share between 1996 and 2005 was published by Teikoku Shoin (gain of 12 percent market share), which contained rather a lot of material about colonialism, atrocities, oppression etc
- even including a reference to comfort women in 2001.
It is a complex story and from an anti-nationalist point of view, I think it's a more hopeful story than has been recognised.

I agree about the symbolic significance of the 'neighbouring countries' clause going well beyond history textbooks, however, and I agree that its removal would be very unhelpful for Japan's relations with China and the ROK.

I also agree with Earl that the significance of textbooks should definitely not be overrated.
Publications dealing with this topic include an article by Fukuoka in The International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 24: 3-4; Philip Seaton, Japan's Contested War Memories; and my chapter in Vickers and Jones (eds), History Education and National Identity in East Asia.

Peter

Peter Cave
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SALC, University of Manchester