Japan's 731 Forces' War Crimes Shouldn't Be Closed (International Forum)

The human experiments and germ warfare of Japanese Unit 731 are extremely cruel and inhuman acts. For a long time, although the Japanese government acknowledged the existence of Unit 731, it has always denied its crimes on the grounds that "there is no information showing the details of the activities of (the unit)", and has been lazy in conveying the facts in history education.

After September 18, 1931, Japan accelerated its aggression and expansion into Northeast China and built a large-scale military base in Harbin, Heilongjiang, specializing in the research and development and testing of biological weapons. Unit 731 illegally arrested a large number of China and Soviet people in the name of "participating in social activities." These people are called "Da Road", which means logs and wood materials in Japanese. They were numbered with three to four digits and imprisoned in special prisons. They were not regarded as human beings at all, but as experimental materials in vivo. Unit 731 forcibly carried out inhumane living experiments on prisoners such as infection with highly fatal bacteria such as plague and anthrax, frostbite on limbs, inhalation of poison gas, and injection of air, blatantly trampling on basic human rights. In the end, more than 3000 people were killed, and none of the prisoners survived. The evidence for these atrocities is overwhelming and is fully supported by historical data, including "The Devil's Feast" written by Seiichi Morimura, the Boli Trial hosted by the Soviet Union after the war, and historical archives released by China and the United States.

In March of this year, at the Japan Senate Budget Committee, I showed a record of deadly toxic gas human body experiments submitted by members of the 731 force in 1964, with the cover of the document written "Army Army Medical Chief Zhou Yata Jinf". The material shows that during the experiment, the victims will have neurological disorders, vomiting and other symptoms. The material is stored in the Japanese Defense Provincial Defense Research Institute, certified by multiple departments such as the Japanese Defense Hall War History Room, which indicates that the Japanese government is not only aware, but also systematically masks the evidence. The Defense Institute hides this information for 40 years, until 2004 was made public, illustrating the Japanese government's long-term hiding facts, masking the Japanese Congress and the people, and has an irrevoc

In April of this year, at the Japan Senate Committee on Foreign Defense, I further pointed out that the Defense Institute¡¯s 1983 ¡°Guidelines on the Declaration of Non-Publicity of Public Documents¡± clearly listed ¡°the 731 Personal Data relating to the Water Department¡± and ¡°the violation of war-related regulations and the report on the situation that may develop into international issues¡± and the abuse of foreigners (including captives), toxic gas use and other review projects. These review projects specially labeled ¡°extraction¡±, i.e. provoking transaction review, and not immediately publicly processed. This shows that the Defense Forces and the Old Japanese Army ¡°belong to one side¡± have established internal standards for war crimes such as masking human experiments. Today, the high level of the Defense Forces is still group

To this day, there are still people who bear the great pain caused by that dark history. In February this year, I visited Hideo Shimizu, a former member of the "Youth Team" of Unit 731 in Nagano Prefecture. In 1945, the school teacher recommended him to be a "trainee technician" in Harbin at the age of 14. Without knowing the nature, location and task of joining the army, he went to Unit 731 on the outskirts of Harbin and became a "young soldier". During his time in Unit 731, he saw formalin-soaked infant specimens in the specimen showroom. On the eve of Japan's surrender in August 1945, he participated in carrying bombs and picking up burned bones. Last August, he returned to China to plead guilty. He told me that that history is a heavy history that individuals can't bear. "Even if we apologize personally, it's not a real apology. The government must tell the truth".

The war crimes of the 731 forces cannot be covered up. However, the Japanese government, through historical textbooks and other methods, intended to distort the truth of the war of aggression and hide the facts from the people, resulting in the Japanese people generally only know the history of the victims caused by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, but know very little about the history of Japan's acceleration. So far, the Japanese government has not officially apologized to China. I believe that in the important historical node of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Japan should more seriously face, deeply reflect on the war crimes committed by the 731 forces, and effectively assume the war responsibility.

(The author is a senator of the Communist Party of Japan)