The text blames bad central planning for its failure and is quick to add: "During the Great Leap Forward, every village in China built its commune. Members of the commune could eat in its dining hall free of charge.''

Although Xuanyao's history teach-ers have taught her much about Japanese atrocities, she said, they are reluctant to talk about the Great Leap Forward. And they never mention the deadly Tiananmen Square protests.

"Studying Chinese history is very important because it helps increase our knowledge and our patriotism,'' said Xuanyao, 16, dressed in purple jeans and a matching backpack. "I wasn't taught anything about Tiananmen. But what the Japanese did, particularly the Nanjing massacre, is unforgivable. Remembering this is very, very important for our national pride.''

Beijing has criticized Japan in recent weeks for whitewashing its militarist history, focusing in particular on a junior high school textbook recently approved by Tokyo.

A close look at the mainland's corresponding textbook, Chinese History - Textbook for Junior High School, however, finds several areas where China's official history appears to have gaps of its own.

"The embarrassing fact for the Communist Party, and one that is not taught in Chinese schools, is that the party itself is responsible for many more deaths of Chinese people than those caused by Japanese militarism,'' said Sam Crane, Asian studies professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Historians and China scholars say an underlying theme in many mainland textbooks is the country's victimization at the hands of foreign powers, particularly the Japanese. Although this is true, they say, the mainland tends to underplay the long periods that it dominated its neighbors.

The focus on being a victim can easily spark social indignation and the sort of emotional outpouring and violence seen in recent weeks, some argue. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura echoed this theme last month on a TV talk show, accusing Beijing of indoctrinating its students with an unbalanced view of the past.

``There is a tendency towards this in any country,'' he said. ``But the Chinese textbooks are extreme in the way they uniformly convey the `our country is correct' perspective.''

Machimura said Japan would consider mounting its own review of Chinese history textbooks. According to a survey released last month by Japan's Asahi newspaper, more than 80 percent of Japanese believe the mainland's nationalistic education system encouraged the recent protest, which saw Japan's embassy and consulates attacked, Japanese cars overturned and businesses vandalized.

In recent days, Beijing has moved to quell the demonstrations. Last month, officials detained 42 anti-Japanese protesters, some caught on security cameras hurling bottles, and paraded them on television in a warning to the nation. The government, apparently fearful that the protesters could turn their focus on it, wanted to prevent further disturbances before the historically significant May 1 and May 4 holidays.

In addition to ignoring the Tiananmen Square massacre, China's main junior high history text makes short work of most of the surrounding decade. Under chapter subheadings such as ``Great Achievements of Socialist Construction,'' the text skips from Deng Xiaoping's market-oriented policy after 1978 to the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

``These textbooks don't make any sense,'' said Jasper Becker, author of Hungry Ghosts, about the Great Leap Forward. ``All sorts of things are brushed under the carpet.''

The Chinese History textbook, the most popular of seven approved by the Education Ministry for nationwide use, also gives the Communist Party a disproportionate role in fighting the Japanese in the 1930s and '40s. In fact, many historians say, most of the heavy lifting was done by the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, whose members fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war to Mao's forces.

Mao's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, a period of chaos marked by purges and the tyranny of the fanatical Red Guards, does merit a (five-page) chapter that concedes Mao made a ``wrong analysis of the class struggle.''

But much of the blame is pinned on Mao's fourth wife, Jiang Qing, part of the Gang of Four, for trying to take over the party. Nor is there any mention of the extreme suffering people endured.

Officials with the Education Ministry and the textbook publisher could not be reached for comment.

Mainland historians, however, say the field is becoming more objective. ``No country has perfect textbooks, and China is no exception,'' said Zhang Sheng, history professor at Nanjing University. ``But they are improving. While 30 years ago they were based mostly on class struggle, now they're increasingly based on facts.''

Zhang said three decades is not enough time for mainland historians to come to a definitive view of the Cultural Revolution. ``Those who experienced the Cultural Revolution drew their own lessons, so you don't need a lot of words in the chapter on this,'' he added.

Mainland history is a sensitive enough topic that the nation's cyberpolice block Web sites on key events, and history professors worry about losing their jobs for expressing views that do not follow the party line.

One historian, who asked not to be identified, said Beijing used the history issue as a weapon against the Japanese when it was convenient. ``It's useful as a diplomatic card, to cover up the real issue - economic confrontation,'' he said. ``Domestically, the Communist Party has crafted its own version of history to bolster its legitimacy. That's why it's still impossible to look objectively at Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen Square.''

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