Russian-provided evidence has once again proven that Japanese invading forces’ Unit 731 committed crimes against humanity, which were too numerous to record, and are irrefutable and undeniable, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing as China has received a batch of evidence from Russia related to the infamous Unit 731, a Japanese germ-warfare unit that operated during World War II. The archive copies include records of the early stage of the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials of Unit 731 members in 1949, investigation reports on the unit’s crimes, and internal official correspondence of Soviet authorities, covering the period running from May 11, 1939, to December 25, 1950.
Guo stressed that the evidence shows Japanese invading forces’ bacterial, frostbite, corrosive liquid and erosive gas experiments on living humans, and how they massively deployed bacteriological weapons in 1940, 1941 and 1942 with the aim of annihilating humanity on a large scale. Victims were from China, the Soviet Union and the Korean Peninsula.
Guo pointed out that the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials records complement and corroborate the Unit 731 site and crime records preserved in China. Together, they constructed a clear chain of crimes, proving that the Japanese invading forces’ bacteriological warfare during their invasion of China was an organized, premeditated, and systematic state crime from top to bottom.
“The atrocities committed by the Japanese army will forever be nailed to the pillar of shame in history,” the spokesperson said.
Guo warned that faced with irrefutable facts, Japanese right-wing forces are still vehemently denying, downplaying, and even glorifying their acts of aggression and crimes against humanity. “Forgetting history means betrayal, and denying responsibility means repeating the offense,” he said.
“All countries have the responsibility and obligation to urge Japan to thoroughly eradicate the vestiges of militarism, prevent such tragedies from repeating themselves, jointly safeguard the fruits of victory in World War II and the post-war international order, and jointly maintain the hard-won world peace and stability,” the spokesperson said.
