A state institute in charge of curricula has approved new secondary school history textbooks, the education ministry said Friday, a move that could spark public scrutiny over their perspective on the country’s checkered modern history.

The move by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation came after an independent textbook review committee of experts endorsed middle school history textbooks by seven private publishing companies and high school history textbooks by nine private publishers.

Schools across the country can choose from any of the history textbooks, which will be used in classrooms beginning next year.

At issue is how to describe South Korea’s first President Rhee Syng-man and the 1950-53 Korean War in a country that has long been divided along ideological fault lines.

A high school history textbook by the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation — which was approved for the first time — used “liberal democracy” instead of “democracy,” a term that has long been used by the progre
ssive academic community, when describing Rhee’s proclamation of the establishment of the Republic of Korea based on liberal democracy.

Rhee was the first president of South Korea, which was founded in 1948 after its liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Rhee has long been at the center of controversy due to differing evaluations on his flaws and feats.

Some view him as the national founder of the South Korean government in the chaos after the country’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule. He also led through the ensuing U.S. military rule of the country and emerging threats from the communist North Korea. But critics say he ruled with an iron hand and prioritized anti-communism over the punishment of pro-Japanese collaborators.

Rhee stepped down following a 1960 pro-democracy civil uprising triggered by public anger over vote rigging in the presidential election by the Rhee government in power at the time. Rhee later went into exile in Hawaii and died there in 1965.

The history textbook by t
he Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation also stated that North Korea possessed modern weapons and was thoroughly preparing for an invasion of South Korea when it described the outbreak of the war.

On Korean victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, the history textbook stated young women were made to live terrible lives without directly mentioning the sexual exploitation.

Historians estimate that 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, were forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II. The sexual slavery victims are one of the many thorny issues between South Korea and Japan.

Meanwhile, all nine textbooks included a description of the term “liberal democracy,” as advocated by the conservative bloc, which argues that “liberal” should precede “democracy.”

Such an argument is based on the Constitution, established in 1987, which references a “liberal democratic basic order.”

On the other hand, the liberal bloc has argued that such phrasing is problematic, as it was equated with “a
nti-North Korea” sentiment during the era of dictatorship, and suggested that “democracy” alone is a more neutral term.

It is expected that the liberal bloc will oppose the new textbooks.

All nine books also described Aug. 15, 1948, the end of Japan’s colonial rule, as the day the Republic of Korea (ROK) government was established. The ROK is the official name of South Korea.

In contrast, some conservative historians have asserted that the day should be marked as the establishment of the ROK.

The new textbooks also clearly describe North Korea’s provocations, such as the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010 or the shelling of the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong in the same year.

Source: Yonhap News Agency