Unit 731's crimes against humanity undeniable: Chinese FM 

(ECNS) -- The National Archives Administration of China on Saturday published a batch of declassified Russia-provided archives on Soviet interrogations of the Japanese Unit 731 in Khabarovsk. The archives contain interrogation records of Unit 731 members and investigation reports on the unit's crimes.

In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a regular press conference on Monday that the archives transferred by Russia are yet another piece of ironclad evidence of crimes against humanity committed by the Japanese Unit 731 during its aggression against China, and there's no room for denial.

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. Among the victims, there were not only the Chinese people, but also people from the Soviet Union and the Korean Peninsula, Guo introduced.

"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," he said.

The spokesperson added 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 prove 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 and conducted illicit human experiments and waged germ warfare in Southeast Asian countries. Their atrocities will be condemned to perpetual infamy.

"Alarmingly, despite those solid facts, right-wing forces in Japan are still trying every means to deny, whitewash and even gloss over the aggression and crimes against humanity. Amnesia of history means betrayal, and denial of responsibility spells repetition of crimes. Every country has the responsibility and obligation to urge Japan to have a complete reckoning with the specter of militarism that still haunts it, never let tragedy repeat itself, jointly uphold the outcomes of the WWII victory and the post-war international order, and safeguard the hard-won world peace and stability," the spokesperson concluded.

(By Evelyn)