In a move certain to anger China and South Korea, Japan on Monday rejected calls for major revisions to a history textbook that critics say whitewashes Tokyo's wartime atrocities, Japanese media reported. However, two factual errors would be fixed, it was reported.

The junior high school history book approved by Tokyo in April has strained Japanese diplomatic ties, especially with China and South Korea, who have both demanded extensive revisions.

Seoul says the book justifies Japan's invasion of much of Asia in the early 20th century and fails to explain the plight of 100,000 "comfort women", most from the Korean Peninsula, forced to provide sex to Japanese troops during World War Two.

It objects to Japan's justification of its 1910-1945 occupation of the peninsula as necessary for stability.

Seoul had urged Japan to act to resolve the thorny issue ahead of the two countries' staging of next year's World Cup soccer finals.

The decision was likely to enrage China, with whom relations are already strained by trade spats and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial pledge to visit the Yasukuni Shrine.

If local education authorities in Japan choose the book from among eight newly approved junior high school history books, it would be used from April 2002, the start of the Japanese school year.

Tokyo has said the textbook, which was written for schoolchildren aged 13 to 15, does not represent the government's official view of history.

OUTRAGE ANTICIPATED

An earlier revision of the book excised a reference playing down the scale of the Nanjing Massacre, in which as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians died when Japanese troops overran the eastern city in December 1937.

But a screening panel left in other controversial sections, including parts that describe Japanese troops as braving "death with honour".

On Saturday, South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the government would continue to push Japan to make changes to the book, adding that two-way ties would be seriously hurt if Tokyo refused to cooperate.

South Korean television said that Seoul would take various measures, including delaying the opening of its market to previously banned Japanese products.

Japanese history textbooks, periodically updated under a screening system by the Education Ministry, have aroused fierce debate at home and in Asian countries invaded by Japan in the first half of the 20th century.