Page 37 - Unit 731

In the afternoon of 10 April 2015, my colleagues, Ms Rujia Liu and Ms Tongzhu Wang, and I took a train to Shenyang to meet with Yibing Wang, a
member of victim Yaoxuan Wang’s family. Since summer 2005, the year when I first met with Yibing Wang, I have met with him at least once a year for
academic activities and media interviews. Although I met with Wang more than ten times, I never met him in his hometown Shenyang. I especially wanted
to understand his life there.
In the morning of 11 April, we visited the Palace of the Qing Dynasty, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Light rain started to fall that afternoon, and I
was standing by a window looking at the busy street. I was thinking how tiny humans are when compared with the big city, when Xiaoguang Wang—
Yibing Wang’s son—knocked on the door. We rode to Wang’s home at 11 Wanrong Road.
He and his wife were home in their tidy two-room flat of about 60 square metres and welcomed us with oranges and apples. Yibing Wang was born in
1930. His hearing and vision were both good, but his response was a bit slow. Yibing Wang has four children and one grandson from each child (because
of China’s one-child policy, most families have one child). Yibing Wang was thirteen years old when Yaoxuan Wang visited him at Beijing Huiwen
Primary School. It was the last time he saw his father.
Yaoxuan Wang, born in 1898, was originally from Zhanglukou village at Raoyang, Hebei. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1939 and served
as correspondent and Soviet spy. He lived at 24 Xinglong Street, Beijing City, and was the owner of Hongtaihao. In 1941, he opened Xingya Photo Gallery
and Fuxing Stationary at Dalian. The two shops were the International Far East information exchange station with Delong Shen as manager and led by
Zhongshan Li and Baozhen Wu, who were spying on the Japanese Army. In the autumn of 1943, Manchuria Unit 86 discovered secret radio waves in
Dalian that sent signals to Chita, the Soviet Union, and Yanan, China, every Tuesday and Friday at midnight. They tracked the radio waves to Fuxian
Stationary at 153 Shijiaosha, Dalian. At midnight on 1 October 1943, eighty soldiers from the Dalian Kempeitai took over Fuxian Stationary and arrested
Delong Shen, Guiqin Liu, Wenhua Li, and Yaqin Li. The Kempeitai searched the shop and found the radio, wires, code book, and other evidence.
According to investigation records of the Japanese Army, Delong Shen, born in 1911, was from Raohe of Dongan at Manchukuo, joined the Northeast
Anti-Japanese United Army in 1934, and later studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. He was fluent in Chinese, Russian, and
Korean. Shen later joined the Soviet Communist Party. In December 1939, sent by the Soviet Red Army, Shen became a radio waves intelligencer. During
trial by the Dalian Kempeitai, Shen revealed information about the organisation, members, activities, communication codes, and passwords of the
International Far East Information Station.
Xingya Photo Gallery was closed by the Dalian Kempeitai, and Zhongshan Li and Baozhen Wu from Fuxian Stationary left that day for Shenyang to
pass the news to Shenyang Information Station. The Dalian Kempeitai collected information from Shen in a short period and, according to Shen’s
information, started large-scale arrests.
On 6 October 1943, the Dalian Kempeitai arrested Zhongshan Li, Ziguang Han, and Jiechen Shi in Shenyang. On 11 October, Yaoxuan Wang and his
niece, Xuenian Wang, were also arrested by the Japanese Kempeitai. Kempei Yutaka Mio and Setsu Naganuma extorted confessions by torturing, beating
their legs with wooden sticks, feeding them chili water, putting them on an electric chair, and striking them with a soldering iron.
Subsequently, Dalian sent Yaoxuan Wang, Xuenian Wang, Zhongshan Li, and Delong Shen to Unit 731 by special transfer arranged by Yutaka Mio,
with the approval of Kempeitai, under the charge of being ‘Soviet intelligence officers’. The rest of the arrested Chinese disappeared after the accusation.
That was the mystery of the influential Incident of Dalian Heishijiao (see Fig. 10).
The disappearance of Yaoxuan Wang has worried Yibing Wang and his family all these years. After the surrender of Japan in 1945 and the
establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949, there was no news of Yaoxuan Wang. In 1955, the Martyr Certificate of Yaoxuan Wang was sent to
Yibing Wang confirming his father was killed by the Japanese. Yibing Wang has suffered greatly from the loss of his father, and for fifty years after his
father was killed, he attempted to collect materials about his fate. Beginning in the spring of 1993, he searched the archives in Beijing, Shenyang, Dalian,
Changchun, and Harbin for anything regarding Yaoxuan Wang.
In 1994, Yibing Wang engaged attorneys Hiroshi Oyama, Toshitaka Onodera, Harumi Watanabe, and Shogo Watanabe to bring a suit against the
Japanese Government. In preparing material for the suit, Harumi Watanabe found Yutaka Mio, the former member of Dalian Kempeitai. Watanabe
explained to Mio about Wang, including his desire for an apology from the government to the family, assumption of complete responsibility for the loss of
Yaoxuan Wang, and asked Mio to be witness in the law suit.
Yibing Wang recorded the response from Harumi Watanabe when he explained the situation:

Harumi Watanabe said the person who ‘… arrested, tried and special transferred your father and your cousin to Unit 731 was Yutaka Mio’. I was shocked at that time. It seemed like all the sorrow and
anger became clearer. I did not want to listen anymore, but I could not help wanting to listen to the lawyer’s explanation of how he found Mio.
Harumi Watanabe told Yibing Wang:
Yutaka Mio was specially amnestied to Japan in 1956. He regretted his behaviour that gave pain and suffering to the Chinese, and he decided to prevent the rebirth of Japanese imperialism. In order to
improve the relationship between Japan and China, and to maintain world peace, he and other amnestied Japanese soldiers established the Association of Returnees from China with Mio as one of the
committee members. After his return, he worked hard for improving Sino-Japanese relationships and therefore he received pressure from the right wing in Japan. Mio could not find a job and suffered
a hard life. But he continues working hard to reveal the war crimes committed by Imperial Japan.
Yibing Wang, his cousin, and his younger sister listened and did not speak a word. Harumi Watanabe continued: ‘On January 5, 1994, when Yutaka Mio
and Setsuji Nagane travelled to China, they visited the Dalian city government and made their apologies to the Chinese for their special transfer of
Yaoxuan Wang to Unit 731 when both of them were members of Dalian Kempeitai’.
Yibing Wang watched Watanabe stop in the middle of the conversation. ‘And I tried hard not to cry in front of a Japanese,’ he said (see Fig. 11).
On the fiftieth anniversary of the victory of the Sino-Japanese War in 1995, the Anti-invasion and Peace Maintenance Seminar was held in Harbin.
Both Yibing Wang and Yutaka Mio joined the seminar. On 31 July, accompanied by Yuan Jin, former manager of the Fushun War Criminals Management
Centre, Mio apologised to Yibing Wang. The following is the narrative from Yibing Wang about his meeting with Yutaka Mio:

At 7.30, I, Xiaoguang Wang, Wenjun Shi and Ying Liu from the Dalian Chronicle Office gathered in a small conference room at the Harbin Airport Hotel. Wenjun Shi and Ying Liu provided me
information about Dalian Kempeitai in the past. When we were seated, Yuan Jin came over, and an extremely thin and humpbacked individual followed him. His eyes were hollow, and his hair was all
grey. He seemed to be in his 80s. He was Yutaka Mio.
Yuan Jin came two steps forward. Since he was tall and big, he stood between me and Yutaka Mio to prevent contact between abuser and victim. He spoke in fluent Japanese: ‘this is the family
member of martyr Yaoxuan Wang, Yibing Wang’.
Later, he pointed to the thin old man and spoke to him in Chinese, ‘This is the former member of Dalian Kempeitai, war criminal Yutaka Mio, the abuser of martyrs Yaoxuan Wang and Dongsheng
Wang’.
During the introduction, Yutaka Mio bowed deeply and didn’t move a bit. When Yuan Jin finished the introduction, he moved forward and kept bowing, at the same time, kept saying: ‘I am guilty,
I am guilty…’
Yuan Jin repeated in Chinese. It began the conversation between us with Japanese and Chinese translation by Yuan Jin.
‘Dear family member of martyr Yaoxuan Wang, Yibing Wang, I am guilty. I followed the imperialist aggressors of Imperial Japanese to China and started a mad invasion’.
Wenjun Shi and Ying Liu took out their cameras and two precious pictures. I listened to Mio’s apology and felt increasingly angry. Had I not been a Communist Party member, I would stand up
and beat him up. My discipline and rational power helped controlling my anger.
‘When I was Sergeant Major in Dalian Kempentai, I arrested your father and cousin at Tianjin. Because of my guilt, I bought serious disaster to the two families. I am guilty. I apologise to your
family. The policy of “hate the crime but not the individual” from the Chinese government made me a new person, saved me and gave me a second chance to live. This allowed me to make apology to
you. Not only did I torture your father, more seriously I sent him to Unit 731. They died in there [Unit 731]. It was all my fault. My guilt was as serious as leader of bacterial warfare Shirō Ishii. Once
again, I apologise to you all, and all family members of the victims. I will regret for my entire life and fight for the friendship between China and Japan. I am willing to reveal the truth done by
imperial Japan during WWII and become the witness for Mr [Yibing] Wang. Once again, know I will apologise to all members of Chinese victims, especially to both of your families, forever’.