On July 20, 1982 (the 30th day of the fifth lunar month), China, South Korea and other countries exposed the issue of Japan's revision of textbooks.

On July 20, 1982, China and South Korea exposed the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Culture's primary and secondary school history textbooks for distorting history and glorifying aggression.

In the 1960s, with the rapid development of Japan's economy, a countercurrent to defend militarism emerged. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports instructed to change the expression of "aggression". In 1980, when reviewing textbooks, it downplayed "aggression" as "in and out" and distorted the historical facts of the Nanjing Massacre and the March 1 Movement in Korea. In 1982, such textbooks were publicly published.

On July 20, China's People's Daily and South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo published articles criticizing the issue, which evolved into a diplomatic issue. On July 26, China's Foreign Ministry lodged a protest with the Japanese government, demanding that it be corrected. Public opinion in Hong Kong, Taiwan, North Korea, Vietnam, and Malaysia also rallied. On August 3, South Korea's foreign minister lodged a formal protest with Japan. On August 8, the Japanese government sent officials to China to negotiate on the textbook issue. On August 26, the Japanese government stated that it was responsible for correcting mistakes, and on September 6, it explained the specific measures for correcting them. On September 26, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiyuki Suzuki visited China and said that the textbook issue should be resolved politically and diplomatically.

In 1986, the textbook issue arose again, and the Chinese government made a serious statement, pointing out that whether it was possible to correctly understand the history of Japanese aggression in the past was a major issue of principle. Under pressure at home and abroad, the Japanese government made many cuts to the obvious errors in the textbook, but still deliberately covered up the crimes of Japanese militarism.