China strongly objects Japan's attempts to claim sovereignty over the disputed Diaoyutai Islands, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday.
The Japanese education ministry approved on Wednesday new schoolbooks on history, geography and civil law, which state that the uninhabited chain of islands, known as Diaoyutai in China and Senkaku in Japan, belong to Japan.
"All attempts to change real facts are pointless," spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, adding that the two states "have had no territorial dispute on that issue."
The new education materials also provoked a negative response in South Korea by calling the disputed Dokdo Islets, also known as the Liancourt Rocks, Japanese territory.
The textbooks also claim Japanese sovereignty over the south Kuril Islands, known as the Northern Territories in Japan, which are currently administered by Russia.
BEIJING, March 31 (RIA Novosti)
