A REVISED edition of a controversial Japanese school history book has provoked furious protests from China and South Korea and accusations that Tokyo is whitewashing its militaristic past.

Chinese supermarkets even began a boycott of Japanese foods after the book, produced by a right-wing publishing house, was approved by the Japanese Ministry of Education yesterday.

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The Association of Chinese Retailers called for a boycott of Japanese products, specifically Asahi Beer and the food giant Ajinomoto, because senior advisers to those companies sit on the Japanese Society for Textbook History Reform — a panel with notoriously nationalistic views. Fuso Publishing, which produces the books, accuses mainstream Japanese history textbooks of “self-denigration”.