All countries have responsibility to urge Japan to eliminate remnants of militarism: Chinese spokesperson

BEIJING -- All countries have the responsibility and obligation to urge Japan to thoroughly eradicate the vestiges of militarism, said Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun on Monday, calling for joint efforts to safeguard the outcomes of World War II victory and the post-war international order.

Guo made the remarks after China had received a batch of Russian-provided evidence related to the infamous Unit 731, a Japanese germ-warfare unit that operated during World War II.

On Dec 13, the National Archives Administration of China published a batch of declassified Russia-provided archives on Soviet interrogations of the Japanese Unit 731 in Khabarovsk. The archives, containing interrogation records of Unit 731 members and investigation reports on the unit's crimes, once again lay bare Japan's notorious germ warfare during its aggression against China.

The archive copies once again show that Unit 731 has committed monstrous crimes against humanity, which are backed by irrefutable evidence and must not be denied, Guo told a regular press briefing.

According to the archives, during the aggression, the Japanese military conducted various live human experiments, including experiments with germ, frostbite, corrosive liquid and erosive gas, Guo pointed out. He added that among the victims, there were not only the Chinese people, but also people from the Soviet Union and the Korean Peninsula.

The interrogation records disclosed for the first time show that the confession of Kiyoshi Kawashima, former head of Unit 731's bacterial production department, and other Japanese war criminals detailed the Japanese military's large-scale use of biological weapons in China in 1940, 1941 and 1942, and the records prove that the application of the experiments in the war aimed at the large-scale destruction of humans, Guo said.

He further noted that the trial records in Khabarovsk - supporting and adding more proofs to the files kept by China - together with the site of Unit 731 in China, clearly demonstrate how the unit committed crimes in China and proved that the germ warfare was a premeditated, organized, top-down and systematic state crime.

Besides in China, the Japanese military established Unit Oka 9420 in Singapore in 1942, conducted illicit human experiments and waged germ warfare in Southeast Asian countries, Guo said. "Their atrocities will be condemned to perpetual infamy," he added.

It is alarming that, despite these undeniable facts, right-wing forces in Japan continue to vehemently deny, downplay, or even whitewash acts of aggression and crimes against humanity, Guo noted, adding that amnesia of history means betrayal, and denial of responsibility spells repetition of crimes.

"All countries have the responsibility and obligation to urge Japan to thoroughly eliminate the remnants of militarism, so that such tragedies are never repeated. Together, we must safeguard the outcomes of the victory in World War II and the post-war international order, and jointly uphold the hard-won peace and stability in the world," the spokesperson said.