Iain Mills: Japan's Notorious Unit 731 Rears Its Ugly Head
[Iain Mills is a Beijing-based freelance writer specializing in the Chinese political economy, who can be reached at sigmills@hotmail.com]
Harbin, provincial capital of Heilongjiang province in northeast China, is most famous for its European architecture and ice festival, when huge structures are carved out of frozen blocks and adorned with lights.
However, a less pleasant history lurks in the city's southern Pingfang district. This otherwise unremarkable suburb has grown up around the former headquarters of Unit 731, Imperial Japan's notorious chemical warfare testing unit, and the complex remains largely untouched, a low-key memorial to a truly gruesome history.
Local authorities have been attempting to upgrade and expand the site for some time, and following a rejection from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to afford the site "World Heritage Status" last month, they have promised to redouble their efforts.
In the delicate and symbol-laden realm of Sino-Japanese relations, the handling and response to the site's redevelopment could shed light on the wider evolution of bilateral and regional relations.
Unit 731 - or to give it its Japanese name, the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army - was the headquarters of the Japanese army's chemical and biological warfare program from 1935 to 1945.
Among the unit's activities was human testing; it conducted experiments on over 10,000 live subjects, including vivisection, weaponry, germ and chemical warfare tests, and other biological experiments. After World War II, most of those who worked at Unit 731 were granted an amnesty by the occupying American administration in Tokyo in return for complete access to their methods and data - many even embarked on successful careers in Japan and the United States. Most victims were Chinese, but Russians, Mongolians, Koreans and Western prisoners were also used in experiments.
The existence of Unit 731 remained unknown beyond those involved and a small circle of high-ranking officials until a chance finding in a Tokyo bookstore in 1984. A student rummaging through the papers of a deceased military official found war-time reports of studies into tetanus using involuntary human subjects at the Epidemic Prevention Department. Initially, both the US and Japanese governments denied all knowledge, but by 1993 the US State Department yielded to considerable pressure and declassified the relevant documents.
These revealed that hundreds of separate experiments using human subjects had taken place at the Harbin headquarters as well as a network of affiliated units at locations throughout mainland China. In 2002, the Japanese government admitted it has carried out human anatomical experiments, but declined to acknowledge any other activities, and it still refuses to refer to the unit by name.
The unit's former headquarters remain essentially untouched. Set back from the roadside in a non-descript suburb of Harbin, sandwiched between a school and the identical concrete tenements of a Chinese residential compound, the site is an unassuming two-story brick building housing a small museum and exhibition.
A discrete sign in Chinese characters only marks the entrance, where Number 2 Guardhouse now serves as a ticket office. In the complex grounds are the ruins of half a dozen additional structures, including the incinerator, while the shapes of other buildings can still be made out in the grass. The faded photographs and low-budget feel create a different kind of solemnity to the monumental grandeur of many comparable Chinese historical memorials, such as the vast Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall on the site of a mass grave near the city's Jiangdong Gate, or even the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing.
Unit 731 has remained remarkably low key, both in terms of global awareness and its potential to cause turbulence in Sino-Japanese relations...
Read entire article at Asia Times
Harbin, provincial capital of Heilongjiang province in northeast China, is most famous for its European architecture and ice festival, when huge structures are carved out of frozen blocks and adorned with lights.
However, a less pleasant history lurks in the city's southern Pingfang district. This otherwise unremarkable suburb has grown up around the former headquarters of Unit 731, Imperial Japan's notorious chemical warfare testing unit, and the complex remains largely untouched, a low-key memorial to a truly gruesome history.
Local authorities have been attempting to upgrade and expand the site for some time, and following a rejection from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to afford the site "World Heritage Status" last month, they have promised to redouble their efforts.
In the delicate and symbol-laden realm of Sino-Japanese relations, the handling and response to the site's redevelopment could shed light on the wider evolution of bilateral and regional relations.
Unit 731 - or to give it its Japanese name, the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army - was the headquarters of the Japanese army's chemical and biological warfare program from 1935 to 1945.
Among the unit's activities was human testing; it conducted experiments on over 10,000 live subjects, including vivisection, weaponry, germ and chemical warfare tests, and other biological experiments. After World War II, most of those who worked at Unit 731 were granted an amnesty by the occupying American administration in Tokyo in return for complete access to their methods and data - many even embarked on successful careers in Japan and the United States. Most victims were Chinese, but Russians, Mongolians, Koreans and Western prisoners were also used in experiments.
The existence of Unit 731 remained unknown beyond those involved and a small circle of high-ranking officials until a chance finding in a Tokyo bookstore in 1984. A student rummaging through the papers of a deceased military official found war-time reports of studies into tetanus using involuntary human subjects at the Epidemic Prevention Department. Initially, both the US and Japanese governments denied all knowledge, but by 1993 the US State Department yielded to considerable pressure and declassified the relevant documents.
These revealed that hundreds of separate experiments using human subjects had taken place at the Harbin headquarters as well as a network of affiliated units at locations throughout mainland China. In 2002, the Japanese government admitted it has carried out human anatomical experiments, but declined to acknowledge any other activities, and it still refuses to refer to the unit by name.
The unit's former headquarters remain essentially untouched. Set back from the roadside in a non-descript suburb of Harbin, sandwiched between a school and the identical concrete tenements of a Chinese residential compound, the site is an unassuming two-story brick building housing a small museum and exhibition.
A discrete sign in Chinese characters only marks the entrance, where Number 2 Guardhouse now serves as a ticket office. In the complex grounds are the ruins of half a dozen additional structures, including the incinerator, while the shapes of other buildings can still be made out in the grass. The faded photographs and low-budget feel create a different kind of solemnity to the monumental grandeur of many comparable Chinese historical memorials, such as the vast Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall on the site of a mass grave near the city's Jiangdong Gate, or even the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing.
Unit 731 has remained remarkably low key, both in terms of global awareness and its potential to cause turbulence in Sino-Japanese relations...