(AFP) The Chinese community today launched a signature campaign in a protest over a controversial Japanese history textbook accused of glossing over the nation's wartime record.

The four-day campaign, organised by several Chinese non-government organisations (NGOs), also aims to underline opposition to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's proposed visit to a Tokyo war shrine.

MCA vice-president Ong Ka Ting, said his "blood boiled" when he read the Japanese book.

"The history book is misleading, we cannot accept that. History cannot be changed or whitewashed. You have come here and killed so many, wounded so many," he told reporters after launching the campaign.

Ong, who is also housing and local government minister, said the book claimed that Japanese occupation had helped Malaysia and other countries achieve independence from the British.

"Now they have become our liberator instead of our oppressor. It was as if they just come and breeze through here and never did anything wrong," he said.

"As a Chinese minister and also the vice-president of MCA, I want to take the lead in expressing my protest against the book and also the prime minister's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine."

The book's approval in April by Tokyo as suitable for use in schools drew angry reactions in several Asian countries invaded by Japan, souring relations with China and South Korea in particular.

The books have been criticised for avoiding references to Japan's pre-World War II invasion of its neighbours, playing down the Nanjing Massacre in China and skimming over Japanese troops' use of sex slaves.

Protest note

Koizumi has vowed to visit the Yasukuni Shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead, including convicted war criminals.

China and South Korea have denounced the proposed visit, which they argue would justify Japan's militarist past.

The campaign here ends Wednesday - the anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender - with a wreath-lying ceremony at a memorial park in Kuala Lumpur.

A protest note, along with the signatures collected, will be sent to the Japanese embassy here.

An exhibition will be held during the four-days and two world war movies - Hollywood blockbuster Pearl Harbour and the Nanjing Massacre - will be screened, organisers said.