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Exclusive: Scholars trace Imperial Japanese Army’s germ-warfare outrage across Asia, calling for preventing atrocities from recurring_我的网站

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    Photo: screenshot of the CNA documentary Inside Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments
A documentary revisiting the Imperial Japanese Army's lethal human experiments and biological warfare program has attracted more than 1 million views online, bringing renewed global attention to one of World War II's darkest chapters and a history still little known outside Asia.
Produced by Singapore-based Channel NewsAsia (CNA), Inside Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments features historians and descendants of survivors from countries including the UK, the US, Japan and Singapore. Through their accounts, the documentary details the germ warfare, human experimentation and other crimes against humanity committed by Unit 731 - officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army - during Japan's war of aggression.
Several US, Singaporean and Japanese scholars featured in the documentary recently told the Global Times that the evidence of Unit 731's crimes against humanity is irrefutable. The atrocities represent a shared trauma not only for Asian countries subjected to Japanese fascist aggression, but also for all humanity. "More than 80 years after the war, reviving the collective memory of affected countries is essential to safeguarding peace," they said.
Victims of germ warfare
For much of his life, Katsutoshi Takegami knew only that his father had once worked in China. It was not until years after his father's death that a discovery in the family storehouse prompted the 78-year-old resident of Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, to investigate what that work had involved.
Several thick photo albums had been packed into boxes marked "Nara Army Hospital." Across the black-and-white photographs were references to the "Epidemic Prevention Section" and the "Central China Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department."
"My father worked at a local public health center after World War II. He had mentioned that he had worked in China, but never revealed any details," Takegami told the Global Times. "When I saw those photographs, I desperately wanted to know what my father had done in China."
Determined to find an answer, Takegami closed the café he had spent years building, began examining historical records and consulted researchers. He even traveled to China in search of clues.
His investigation eventually revealed that his father had been a member of Unit 1644, also known as Unit Ei 1644, a germ-warfare formation based in Nanjing. The discovery came as a profound shock.
"When people talk about the Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare, Unit 731 is usually the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, the Japanese military operated many such units," Takegami said.
"The general public knows almost nothing about them, and very few scholars study them. Historical evidence shows that the areas victimized by germ warfare extended far beyond Harbin, where Unit 731 was headquartered. China was by no means the only victimized country," he added.
For Singaporean independent scholar Lim Shao Bin, the realization that this biological warfare network had reached Southeast Asia came on February 14, 2016.
That day, Nobuyoshi Takashima, professor emeritus at the University of the Ryukyus, and his wife took Lim to the former Tampoi Mental Hospital on the outskirts of Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Pointing to a row of buildings, Takashima told him: "This was a wartime production base for Unit 731's plague bombs."
"That cut deeply into me," Lim told the Global Times. "I had studied in Japan since the 1980s and believed I knew a great deal about the crimes committed by the Japanese invaders in China. But I never imagined that Singapore and Malaysia - right on our doorstep - had also suffered at the hands of Unit 731."
From that day forward, Lim began systematically tracing the activities of Japanese germ-warfare units in Southeast Asia.
He explained that the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory of the Imperial Japanese Army Medical School established the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army in Pingfang, Harbin, which became known as Unit 731.
    Photo: screenshot of the CNA documentary Inside Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments
Using Unit 731 as the center of its operations, the Japanese military established the North China Expeditionary Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department in Beijing, known as Unit 1855; Unit Ei 1644 in Nanjing; and Unit Nami 8604 in Guangzhou.
''Yet this network still contained a major missing piece - Southeast Asia,'' Lim said.
The Japanese military established the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of Southern Expeditionary Army in Singapore under the code name Oka Unit 9420. Together, these interconnected germ-warfare formations constituted what Lim described as the "Unit 731 system."
A map compiled by Lim marks five branches of Oka Unit 9420 across Southeast Asia: the Malaya, Java, Manila, Indochina and Thailand branches. These facilities produced plague bacilli and fleas on a large scale, supplying the Japanese military with biological warfare materials and forming a regional germ-warfare network.
Historical documents indicate that Oka Unit 9420 was the largest Japanese germ-warfare unit operating outside the China theater.
In May 2025, Lim and Wang Xuan, president of the Zhejiang Provincial Historical Society's research association on the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45), published a book on the Japanese Army's Oka Unit 9420 after five years of extensive research and writing.
The book offered the first comprehensive account of this nearly forgotten unit and was also the first historical monograph devoted to the Southern Expeditionary Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department.
Work far from over
The CNA documentary traces the origins of Japan's biological warfare ambitions to the 1925 Geneva Protocol, humanity's first major post-World War I attempt to prohibit the use of chemical and biological weapons.
Instead of treating the prohibition as a moral boundary, Shiro Ishii, the notorious commander of Unit 731, recognized the enormous military value of such weapons and regarded them as "a decisive means of winning future wars," according to the documentary.
Unit 731 presented itself publicly as an epidemic-prevention and public health organization. Its real purpose, however, was to conduct secret human experiments in support of biological warfare.
The experiments included infecting victims with plague-bearing fleas, injecting them with dysentery pathogens and subjecting them to frostbite tests in temperatures dozens of degrees below zero.
Japanese soldiers referred to prisoners of war and civilian victims as maruta, meaning "logs," stripping them of their humanity before using them as experimental subjects. Everyone sent into the laboratories eventually died.
As Lim's research shows, the system supporting these experiments extended far beyond Unit 731's headquarters in Harbin.
In February 2018, Lim obtained exclusive access to a reel of wartime film footage shot after 1942 by Tomosada Masuda, a close associate and former schoolmate of Ishii who later became a core member of Unit 731. The footage documented the activities of Oka Unit 9420 in Southeast Asia.
"Harbin's severe winters made it impossible to breed plague-infected fleas on a large scale throughout the year, so Unit 731 urgently needed a warm and humid cultivation base," Lim said. "The optimal conditions for breeding the fleas were temperatures of 27 to 30 C and humidity of around 90 percent. Singapore's climate met all of these requirements."
Another document preserved in a Japanese archive showed that Japanese military "researchers" had successfully isolated a new virus from rats in Singapore and planned to transport it to Unit 731's headquarters in Harbin.
Lim said the virus was not originally native to Singapore but had been deliberately cultivated and introduced by the Japanese military. The Japanese Imperial Army recorded the body temperatures, symptoms and other experimental data of 70 test subjects in detail.
"The documentary examines in depth the crucial role Singapore played in the broader biological warfare operation," Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut, told the Global Times. "This not only expands the geographical scope of research into Unit 731's criminal activities, but also makes one point clear: This history cannot simply be characterized as a dispute between China and Japan. At its core, it was a transnational crime done by Japanese imperial expansion."
Dudden also pointed to the testimony of Hideo Shimizu, a former teenage recruit of Unit 731 who appeared in the documentary. Accounts by those who directly witnessed the unit's activities demonstrate that "the work of exposing this dark history is far from over," she said.
The documentary also highlights the stark disparity in postwar accountability.
After World War II, the victorious Allied powers conducted international trials of leading Nazi war criminals and criminal organizations in Nuremberg, Germany. Yet many of Unit 731's "executioners" returned to Japanese society, where they resumed ordinary careers in medicine and other professions.
"In a sense, this forces all of us to ask: How could a person commit such horrifying crimes, then return home and continue to act as a caring partner, a kind friend or a responsible parent?" Dudden said.
Understand history, learn from it
As of press time, "Inside Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments" has attracted more than 1.13 million views on YouTube and other platforms, with the figure rising.
Its reception raises a broader question: Why has a history rooted in wartime Asia resonated so strongly with audiences across national borders?
"Many people outside China know little or nothing about this history," Dudden said. "For a long time, international understanding of Unit 731 has not merely contained blind spots. It has been marked by widespread historical ignorance - people simply do not know this history."
Dudden cited an example from the university where she teaches. An accomplished professor who held a doctorate from Kyoto University and had spent years living and working in Japan was stunned after watching the documentary.
"I grew up in Bosnia and worked and lived in Japan for many years. My own grandparents died in Nazi concentration camps, yet I had never heard of this history," the professor said.
The professor urged Dudden to introduce the documentary in her classes and help disseminate the historical truth about Unit 731 because "everyone can and must understand this history and learn from it."
At the same time, Dudden emphasized that "understanding history and learning historical knowledge does not mean hating Japan or the Japanese people."
Asked by the Global Times what lessons remembering and reflecting on history can offer for preventing past tragedies from recurring and safeguarding peace and justice, amid Japan's accelerating rightward shift and mounting conflicts worldwide, Dudden said that "choosing silence in the face of atrocities is, to some extent, tantamount to abetting evil."
"Collective numbness and inaction can all too easily give rise to further harm. If humanity is unwilling to reflect together and defend our shared human values, similar tragedies will very likely happen again. Therein lies the answer," Dudden said. 
For historians, years of work with archival materials are essential to identifying decisive evidence and exposing the falsehoods of historical denialists, Dudden said.
"But the challenge remains: Distorted and sanitized narratives have already hardened into mainstream opinion in some countries," she noted. "From this perspective, the historical truth about Unit 731, including that presented in CNA's documentary, deserves to be disseminated widely."
Da Zhigang, a research fellow at the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies of the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that the Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare, chemical warfare and other atrocities were not confined to China.
They also spread across Southeast Asia and the Pacific theater, inflicting profound suffering on people in numerous countries, he said.
Da said the Japanese government has long pursued historical revisionism by deliberately confining its wartime crimes to a bilateral China-Japan framework. It has even substituted concepts and reversed right and wrong, portraying a deliberately launched war of aggression as "an act of self-defense under a complex international environment," he said.
Such narratives seek to reduce the perceived geographical scope of Japan's atrocities and dilute its responsibility for wartime crimes, Da noted.
"Japan's historical revisionism is, in essence, a flagrant violation of the spirit of the UN Charter, international human rights norms and the principles of Japan's own Constitution," Da said. 
"The current Sanae Takaichi administration uses AI and other means to manipulate public opinion, continually poisoning the Japanese public's understanding of history and fundamentally distorting the purpose of peace education," Da said. 
"This erroneous view of history is highly transmissible and has serious spillover effects. It undermines the foundations of Japan's relations with regional countries and risks triggering a chain of negative consequences with lasting repercussions," the expert warned.
Many Asia-Pacific countries share memories of suffering under Japanese militarism as well as a strong emotional resonance rooted in that history. This provides a solid foundation for building a multilateral system of historical accountability, Da said.
Victimized countries across the region should preserve their shared historical memory, work together to expose false narratives promoted by Japan's right wing and fully restore the historical record of Japanese aggression, he added. Such efforts would provide a firm historical basis for upholding regional peace and justice.
For Lim, turning that goal into reality requires overcoming serious obstacles. The countries of Southeast Asia were ruled by different colonial powers during the war, and their archives were consequently preserved in different languages. Records relating to Singapore and Malaysia were largely written in English under British colonial rule, those in Indonesia in Dutch, and those in Vietnam in French.
Already scarce documents are therefore scattered across different countries and divided by linguistic barriers, leaving researchers with very limited material, Lim added.
"Unit 731's germ warfare, human experimentation and other crimes are not only a source of pain for China. They are a shared trauma for all Asian countries that suffered Japanese aggression, and for humanity as a whole," Lim said. "Researching this history is therefore not the responsibility of any one country, but a common responsibility of the international community."
Lim called on countries to strengthen archival sharing and academic cooperation, break down linguistic and national barriers, and jointly uncover more historical truths that have remained buried.
"More than 80 years after the war, reviving the collective memory of affected countries is essential to safeguarding peace," Lim said. "Only by facing history squarely and reflecting on it can we prevent such tragedy from recurring and build a solid foundation for peace." 
。    原标题：把每一寸土地都规划好建设好（前沿观察）——雄安新区树立和践行正确政绩观一线见闻

雄安新区易安社区便民服务站里，党员干部在讨论工作。

B | 杨亚文摄（人民视觉）

雄安新区城市风景。雄安新区宣传网信局供图雄安新区，如何建设好，如今发展怎么样，备受关注。树立和践行正确政绩观学习教育期间，习近平总书记再次到雄安新区深入考察，强调牢牢把握雄安新区作为北京非首都功能疏解集中承载地的首要功能定位，努力建设新时代创新高地和推动高质量发展样板。当地党员干部一体推进学查改，思想再统一，干劲再鼓足。记者近日实地走访，领悟“千年大计”里的政绩观，感受拔节生长的力量。看发展：一切工作服务疏解、配套疏解、支撑疏解出雄安站，驱车西行，热浪扑面。几所疏解高校的楼宇初具规模，明年将迎来首批学子。多家央企总部大楼灯火通明，不远处的京雄快线也蓄势待发，预计年底通车。雄安商务服务中心，这个地标性建筑群集聚58家疏解企业、5700余名员工，其中青年占比70%。

C | 服务紧跟疏解脚步。

D | 迁移注册“零跑腿”一站办，项目落地“一会三函”并联批，惠企政策“免申即享”，还有干部“周周看、家家到”的常态走访。在雄安商务服务中心二楼，疏解服务“心连心”港湾设计简约又醒目，疏解职工上下楼便可在这里咨询、建言，享受学习、联谊等资源。

E | 港湾链接6个大类、254项服务。“让服务更近一点，让温暖更多一点。

F | 服务有温度，疏解加速度。”雄安新区综合服务中心主任韩德强道出对“疏解”的期许。雄安是一座新城，更是北京非首都功能疏解集中承载地。看雄安，应将其置于探索“大城市病”解决之道的时代背景里，置于京津冀协同发展的大棋盘上。透过产业布局，更能感触它的发展脉动。在雄安科创中心中试基地，一条流水式自动化卫星批产产线正有序运转。该生产线去年10月投产，当月便下线了首颗“雄安造”卫星——“雄安一号”，近日成功发射升空。蓝箭鸿擎（雄安）空间科技有限公司把中试环节放在这里，主要是他们敏锐捕捉到，雄安将空天信息和卫星互联网列为重点赛道，并且这是一座从零起步的新城，处处都是新技术落地的天然试验场。“这就是我们的成长场景优势，是别处难以复制的。”雄安新区科学园管委会副主任马扬飚说，“我们可以将最新技术产品从一开始就嵌入城市建设，形成以场景育产业、以应用促发展的循环。”场景只是“土壤”，“种子”从何而来？马扬飚道出关键：“之所以选择发展空天信息和卫星互联网产业，是因为中国星网落地雄安。

G | 一直以来，我们依托疏解资源，描绘产业图谱，有针对性地招引上下游企业。”一切工作服务疏解、配套疏解、支撑疏解。在雄安新区改革发展局局长王彦伟看来，这是不折不扣贯彻落实党中央决策部署的内在要求，也是因地制宜谋发展的科学路径，“如果我们贪大求快、四处招商引资，那面貌早就不一样了。

H | 但我们不能采取以往有的地市的粗放发展模式，必须保持头脑清醒，保持历史耐心。”王彦伟还提到一个关键词——“黏合作用”：“大量央企总部及分支机构落户雄安，加之高校和医疗资源建设提速，这是雄安产业发展的底气。疏解单位具有强大的资源整合能力和产业链带动能力，承接疏解并非简单地搬迁，而是以存量黏合增量，以服务促成集聚。

I | 同时，雄安也在深度融入北京（京津冀）国际科技创新中心建设，带动京津冀整体效益和整体功能提升。

J | ”今天，雄安牢牢牵住“牛鼻子”，以承接疏解带动产业发展、引领科技创新、加速要素集聚、促进区域协同。

K | 空天信息和卫星互联网、人工智能、新材料、数字科技、金融科技、绿色能源六大产业集聚区渐次成形，一座现代化产业新城的肌理日益清晰。看民生：改变融入每个普通人的日子里城在长，人也在变。容西片区贤溪社区，回迁群众安置区，60岁以上的老人有1200多人。社区强化医养结合，养老驿站与社区卫生服务中心无缝衔接。贤溪社区卫生服务中心健康管理科科长季春艳带着记者走了一圈：驿站三楼是运动区，四楼是益智区，五楼是一站式体检中心。65岁以上老人还可以和中心医生签约家庭医生服务。

L | 在楼道里遇见64岁的康爷爷，问及新居感受，老人脱口而出：“住这儿心里踏实。

M | ”几公里外，新区启动区的易安社区，是疏解人员集中居住区。走进社区党群服务中心，儿童区欢声笑语，图书馆书香静好，综合服务台可办理234项京雄同城化业务。

N | 翻开民情台账，一条条诉求写得密密麻麻：“如何办理居住证”“建议增加体育设施”……社区第一书记李泽说：“人来了，心要扎根，日子要过得踏实。我们用心办好每件事。”雄安，有外来创业者，有农民变市民，也有守着老宅过日子的原住居民。

o | 当地坚持一体推进高质量建设和高效能治理，推出“雄才十六条”、打造美丽乡村……改变，融入每一个普通人的日子里。沿着京雄高速往北，容城县八于乡薛庄村村口，村党支部书记、村委会主任冯建光指着崭新的健身广场说：“以前这里是垃圾堆。现在一到晚上，可热闹了！”村里有幸福互助院，有儿童体验园，还有一栋两层的惠民餐厅，谁家有喜事都爱来这办席。走着走着，老冯抬手一指：“看见没？咱村紧挨着京雄高速收费站，马路对面就是郊野公园。回头搞几个农家乐，准红火！”从城乡接合部再往远郊走，走到雄县的最东头，是张岗乡开口二村。8个标准化蘑菇生产仓并排立着，一簇簇秀珍菇从菌袋里探出白白嫩嫩的脑袋。

p | 这是村里的“致富仓”。几年前，这里只有零散的小作坊，村民大多外出务工了。

q | 新区建设以来，有关部门帮扶指导，又和上海市金山区党建联建，开口二村党支部书记、村委会主任辛卫强带着村民蹚出一条产业振兴路。他算起经济账：“秀珍菇采摘周期为7—8天，日均产出4000多斤，销售收入几十万元。

r | 每天都有车拉往北京，即产即销。”“加上周边村子，有80多人在这干活。等新车间建好，自己制备菌棒，规模还能翻番！”说这话时，辛卫强的眼里透着光，那光里有未来。

s | 一路走一路看，让人感慨的还有雄县雄州镇黄湾村。这是一个先进村、老典型，2017年以来主动转型，关停并转一批塑料厂，打造雄山公园、特色民宿，还和山东省寿光市“牵手”，建起一个都市农业科技博览园，绿意盎然。黄湾村党支部书记、村委会主任刘秋乱说得实在：“转型那几年确实难，但不转不行，老路子迟早走不通。咱都是雄安人了，得跟上步伐。”一句话，道出这片土地上朴素而深刻的变化。看队伍：与这座城一起拔节生长在雄安采访，总会问一句，从哪来？是哪里人？有本地的，有石家庄、邯郸的，更有浙江的、江苏的。大家来自五湖四海，为着同一个梦想汇聚于此。

t | 刘振明，雄安新区自然资源和规划局副局长，原在中央部委任职，如今举家扎根。他隔三岔五地捧起《雄安新区规划纲要》，不是例行公事，而是越读越有滋味。

u | 创新、宜居、韧性、文化，还有多规合一，还有问题导向……刘振明逐个要点地讲述，滔滔不绝，“从政绩观的角度说，这就是科学决策”。

v | 好规划得抓执行。“我们一刻也不想等，但每一笔都要精雕细琢。”刘振明说，他们最近为一处血库选址，反复斟酌，既要考虑群众的感受，还要考虑医院的需求、与相关科研项目的衔接，“综合考量、科学决策，就是从规划纲要中悟出来的，这么做也是对规划负责。”城在拔节生长，干部队伍也在拔节生长。人在成就事业，事业同样也在成就人。

w | 雄安新区党群工作部副部长高仲说：“很多人都是受到感召而来。

x | 参与新区建设，对每个人来说，都是一个成长提升的过程。

y | ”见到中国雄安集团生态建设公司园林事业部部长武芳芳，是在中央绿谷公园里的一个书店里。这个公园悠然素雅，是她和同事们的又一个“作品”。自打接手第一个“作品”——悦容公园，她心里就燃起使命感。

z | 设计图纸画了上千遍，数不清；一座塔楼的腰线，组织古建专家反复推敲，改了十几次。干事的过程也是自我提升的过程。雄安古代曾是边关要塞，如何把人文与自然结合起来？雄安有白洋淀，如何连通水系与绿网，更好打造“华北水乡”？高标准、高起点，倒逼她和同事不断学习、倾尽心血。如今，大型综合公园有七八座，街角绿地更是不计其数。“宏观战略要靠无数个微观高质量实践来支撑。

| 我们努力把每一处景观打造成为经典，经得起十年、百年乃至千年的目光的打量。”武芳芳说。把每一寸土地都规划好、建设好，就是把每一份初心都坚守好、践行好。雄安新区党群工作部部长尤志军介绍，树立和践行正确政绩观学习教育开展以来，当地突出以上率下、突出真查实改、突出实干实效，“说到底，树立和践行正确政绩观，就是对标对表习近平总书记重要指示精神，扑下身子抓落实，创造性地抓落实。”千年大计，始于足下，雄安正一天天长成该有的模样。这个模样，在每个雄安人的心尖上，在这个时代的注目里。编后感悟“千年大计”如何理解“千年大计”？采访期间，听到不同维度的答案。有人说，它是品质，沉潜笃行，精益求精，用长远的眼光予以审视，是留给后人的珍贵历史遗产。有人说，它是初心，从规划建设的第一笔落下，便深深植入为民造福的底色。有人说，它是文化，在传承中赓续根脉，在发展中注入时代活力，“千年”不只是时间的长度，更是文明的厚度。

| 还有人说，它是智慧，为有效破解“大城市病”提供“中国方案”……仁者见仁、智者见智，上述观点都饱含对“未来之城”的深情与期许。笔者聆听他们的讲述，心生一层感悟：“千年大计”蕴含着正确政绩观——以敬畏面对历史、以审慎把握当下、以慷慨赠予未来。敬畏，是敬畏自然、敬畏文化、敬畏规律；审慎，是定力与实干的贯通结合，每一寸地基、每一条管线、每一项政策都经过科学论证，都经得起检验；慷慨，是功成不必在我、功成必定有我，把做好当下的每件事都作为对人民、对事业、对子孙后代的承诺……正因如此，雄安拔节生长。再深一层看，“千年大计”是中国共产党人的优秀特质的鲜明体现。党的百年辉煌得益于此，新时代的万千气象得益于此，雄安建设同样得益于此。采访中，一名基层干部说：“千年大计，终将化作一座经得起检验的城，也会沉淀出雄安独有的气韵和精神。”这种气韵和精神，归根到底就是中国共产党人的优秀特质的时代写照。知之愈明，则行之愈笃；行之愈笃，则知之愈明。坚定拥护“两个确立”、坚决做到“两个维护”，把中国共产党人的优秀特质写在大地上、写进时间里，“千年大计”终将实现。（人民日报记者 张 洋）。

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