Page 20 - Unit 731

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Formation, Expansion, and End of Unit 731

China and Japan are neighbouring East Asian countries, separated by a sea. Although both countries use Chinese characters (Kanji) that are almost
indistinguishable to Europeans, gaps and misunderstandings have existed between China and Japan. They share the same cultural background historically,
yet China and Japan have developed into states with different civilisations and customs.
Nevertheless, behind the differences, close connections remain between the two nations. As early as China’s Tang dynasty (AD 618–907), China had
been Japan’s teacher. A Buddhist monk named Rev. Jianzhen (or Ganjin) attempted to visit Japan six times, eventually arriving there in AD 754. He
brought important elements of rich Chinese civilisation and Buddhist culture to Japan that were immensely influential in the establishment of Japanese
politics and culture. During the Ming dynasty (AD 1368–1644), however, Japan no longer regarded China as its teacher, and Japanese pirates looted coastal
areas of China.
The powerful Industrial Revolution in Europe forced both China and Japan to enter the international community during the modern period, with Japan
becoming China’s teacher. After the 1853 arrival in Tokyo Bay of Commodore Matthew C. Perry of the United States Navy, Japan began to modernise.
Following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, it developed into the most advanced nation in Asia, a paradigm of Datsu-A Nyū-Oō—leaving Asia and joining
Europe. Following the development and expansion of international industrialisation, Japan caught the fast track and rose to become a world power. China,
by comparison, despite having been the strongest country in the region for over a thousand years, became isolated, conservative, and declined.
It is difficult to maintain peace with one country strong and the other weak. Although China’s Qing government sent a number of students to Japan to
acquire political skill and technological expertise, China missed the best timing for reform, being at a disadvantage following a series of internal disunity
and natural disasters against the imperial powers.
With the rise of national power and the spiritual influence of bushidō, Japan’s desire for territorial expansion steadily strengthened: it invaded Taiwan
in 1874; unleashed war with China in 1894; participated in the Eight-Nation Alliance to occupy China’s capital, Beijing, in 1900; won the Russo-Japanese
War in north-eastern China in 1905; and annexed the Korean Peninsula in 1910.
Within decades, Japan had hugely benefitted from war compensation and other diplomatic advantages because of victories in these external invasions,
and this greatly aroused Japan’s ambition to invade continental China. In 1927, the Cabinet of Japan suggested the Continental Policy: ‘… if we [Japan]
want to conquer the world, we need to conquer China first. If we want to conquer China, we need to conquer Mongolia and Manchuria first. If we want to
conquer Mongolia and Manchuria, we need to conquer Korea and Taiwan first’. This was later conceptualised as the ‘Great East Asia Co-Prosperity
Sphere’.
On 18 September 1931, Japan triggered the Manchurian Incident (known as the ‘September 18 Incident’ in Chinese), and within a few months, it
occupied all of north-east China, a geographical area three times the size of Japan proper. Afterwards, Japan advocated the establishment of Manchukuo,
allegedly ruled by the Chinese, but in reality a puppet state. Headed by Henry Puyi, the last Emperor of China, as the Chief Executive in 1932 and as
Emperor in 1934, Manchukuo was actually controlled by Japanese, who determined every important issue.
With continuous external invasion and colonial expansion, militarism spread widely in Japan. In this context, Japan began to abrogate all international
treaties, abandon morals and ethics, and devoted its efforts to research and manufacturing biochemical weapons of mass destruction in aggressive wars
against neighbours in the Asian Pacific region. Consistent with this philosophy, Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army was formed.

Japan Violated International Treaties, Secretly Prepared and Executed Bacteriological Warfare
On 17 June 1925 in Geneva, Switzerland, thirty-seven countries, including Japan, the United States, and Germany, signed the ‘Protocol for the Prohibition
of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare’, commonly known as the Geneva Protocol.
The Protocol specifies:
Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilized world; and
Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in Treaties to which the majority of Powers of the world are Parties; and To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of
International Law, binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations; Declare: That the High Contracting Parties, so far as they are not already Parties to Treaties prohibiting such use, accept this
prohibition, agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration. 1
The ‘Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their
Destruction’, which was opened for signature on 10 April 1972, addresses biological warfare similarly:

Recognizing the important significance of the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, signed at Geneva
on 17 June 1925, and conscious also of the contribution which the said Protocol has already made and continues to make, to mitigating the horrors of war. 2
Although the Japanese Government signed the Geneva Protocol in 1925, it never officially endorsed or abided by the Protocol. The Japanese military
violated the international treaty by using chemical and bacteriological weapons in battlefields. According to Ji Xueren, a researcher from the Chemical
Prevention Institute of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, ‘from 1928 to 1945, the Japanese military committed the usage of chemical weapons 1,919
times in 20 provinces such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Hebei, Shandong, Hunan and Henan’. 3
Public information also reveals that the Japanese military committed large-scale usage of bacteriological weapons in Hohhot of Inner Mongolia, west
Shandong, Changde of Hunan, Guangfeng and Shangrao of Shanxi, and Yiwu, Quzhou, Jinhua, and Ningbo of Zhejiang, causing death and injuries of a
great number of innocent civilians, including women and children.
Interrogation of Shirō Ishii

On 6 February 1946, Lt-Gen. Shirō Ishii, the first commander of Unit 731, and Lt-Gen. Masaji Kitano, second commander of the Unit, were interrogated in
Tokyo, Japan, by Lt-Col. Arvo T. Thompson from Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland. Ishii acknowledged Unit 731 committed bacteriological warfare and
conducted bacteriological weapon research, but he dodged questions about financial supports, governmental recognition, and other institutes assisting in