Guangdong Provincial Archives exhibits evidence of Japanese war crimes in China

Guangdong Provincial Archives hosted a donation and exhibition event for archival evidence of Japan's invasion of China from the historical perspective of the Japanese, exposing the aggressive acts of Japanese militarism, on Saturday.

The archives accepted a batch of archival materials on the invasive crimes committed by the Japanese army in South China during World War II donated by local residents, exhibiting the newly collected archival holdings related to the historical crimes of the Japanese militarism on site.

According to a statement released by the archives, for some time, Japanese right-wing forces have steadfastly denied and even glorified their aggressive acts and crimes against humanity.

Japanese incumbent authorities have brazenly interfered in China's internal affairs and challenged the post-WWII international order — which is extremely egregious in nature and impact — arousing public indignation and condemnation among the Chinese people and peace-loving people around the world, the statement said.

"Against this backdrop, the archives' hosting of the donation and exhibition event for archival evidence of Japan's invasion of China is highly timely and far-reaching in significance," it said.

At the event, the archives donated by Sha Dongxun, a research fellow with Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, included the original Japanese manuscript of the testimony record from the interview conducted by Kasukawa Yoshiya on July 20, 1995, in which Inoue Mutsuo, a veteran of the Unit 8604, a Japanese army unit stationed in Guangzhou during the war, exposed the germ warfare atrocities of the Japanese army during the invasion of China, as well as the printed Japanese version of the testimony publicly exposing germ warfare atrocities by veteran Maruyama Shigeru in 1993.

"These are self-incriminating evidence left by the perpetrators of the Japanese army's invasive crimes, who could no longer bear the torment of their conscience in their later years, and the irrefutable proof stands rock solid," the statement said.

The Archives also exhibited on site a newly collected batch of archival holdings related to the Japanese army's war crimes during the invasion of China — including original photos taken and kept as collections by military photographers serving in the 21st Army of the Japanese army that invaded South China — which documented the invasive atrocities, as well as Japanese publications and invasion photo albums on the situation of the invasion of China published by Japanese news media at that time.

"These are all Japanese-language historical materials serving as irrefutable evidence of Japan's invasive history, invaluable and of great historical value," it said.