Wang Xuan, head of the Chinese plaintiffs who fell victim to the Japanese aggressors' germ warfare, disclosed at an international seminar on Nazi Holocaust and Nanjing Massacre that the Japanese aggressors set up 60 germ units and branches in China and ruined the life of at least 270,000 Chinese from 1932 to 1945.

Wang said, during the war in addition to sending germ units to China Japan also set up germ weapon research and production bases on Chinese soils and even used germ weaponry on civilians in actual battles. They released plague germ, anthrax germs and glanders germs etc. into China's forests, rivers and fields, victimizing countless Chinese civilians.

"Moreover, the Japanese troops resorted to germ warfare in all of the Chinese battlefronts, while the use of germ weapons in war is extremely rare worldwide." said Wang Xuan.

According to the research by Wang Xuan and other foreign and Chinese scholars, the Japanese aggressors set up germ experiment units in China's Heilongjiang in 1932. In 1936 by the secret order of the Mikato, or the Japanese Emperor, the Japanese troops set up the germ troops Unit 731 in Harbin, which was mainly engaged in germ weapon research and development.

After Unit 731 the Japanese troops set up germ units in many cities such as Changchun, Peking, Nanjing and Guangzhou. These units had over 60 branches or agencies with more than 10,000 personnel. By the end of the war in 1945 Unit 731 still had over 3,000 personnel.

The Harbin-based Unit 731 and Changchun-based Unit 100 manufactured large amount of anthrax and glanders germs. Unit 731 could produce 600 kilogram anthrax in one month. From 1941 to 1942 Unit 100 produced 1,000 kilogram anthrax germs and over 500 kilogram glanders germs.

According to studies almost all the germ units of the Japanese aggressors used living human beings to conduct germ weapon tests and researches on germ warfare and mass-produced germ weaponry. Apart from regular germ units various Japanese army hospitals, units or even normal troops, hospitals and medical associations also took part in the germ warfare.

Since 1938 the Japanese aggressors began to resort to germ warfare. Surveys conducted after the war show that they used germ warfare in more than 20 Chinese provinces. Of them Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Hunan saw the largest and most damaging germ warfare with Chinese victims reaching at least 270,000.

By People's Daily Online