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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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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.
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."
。 研学团在红旗渠青年洞参观学习。
二 | 红旗渠景区供图 游客在河南博物院参观“北上先锋 红心向党—红二十五军长征革命文物联展”。河南博物院供图 尉氏县党员志愿者在焦裕禄事迹展览馆认真聆听焦裕禄在尉氏的动人往事。李新义 摄 □本报全媒体记者 郭歌 红色旅游承载着铭记革命历史、传承红色基因、赓续精神血脉的重大使命，是开展爱国主义教育、革命传统教育和理想信念教育的生动课堂。 今年是中国共产党成立105周年、红军长征胜利90周年，河南各地红色旅游持续升温。
三 | 同程旅行日前发布的《2026红色旅游消费趋势洞察报告》显示，今年上半年“红色旅游”相关产品搜索热度同比上涨超130%，其中红色景区门票预订热度同比增长86%，红色旅游线路预订热度同比增长48%。 截至目前，全省共有红色旅游景区（点）205家，其中全国红色旅游经典景区数量为14家，余下191个红色旅游景区（点）中，A级以上红色旅游景区（点）为55家。全省共有革命历史类纪念设施、遗址和爱国主义教育示范基地3000余处，零散烈士纪念设施5000余处；收藏在博物馆的可移动革命文物20000余件，革命博物馆纪念馆150余家。 近年来，河南始终以红色资源为根基，在交旅融合、研学旅游、品牌建设等领域积极探索实践，努力推动红色旅游从“单点参观”向“深度体验”转变、从“资源优势”向“产业优势”跨越。 交旅融合 构建“快进慢游”红色旅游网 交通是连接游客与红色景区的“纽带”，河南以“便捷化、智慧化、体验化”为目标，推动交通与红色旅游深度融合，让游客“进得来、游得畅、留得住”。
四 | 7月1日起，红旗渠至信阳直达列车正式开行，为河南红色旅游打开了全新的增长空间。一趟列车，双向奔赴，一头连着太行山下的红旗渠精神高地，一头牵着大别山麓的红色老区。游客向北可以触摸太行绝壁上的奋斗史诗，向南可以探寻大别山中的革命烽火。 同日，郑州至红旗渠的旅游专列也由周末开行升级为每日开行，广大游客可以坐上“红旗渠号”来一场说走就走的“红色之旅”。
五 | “对游客而言，这意味着前一天在鄂豫皖苏区首府体会‘二十八年红旗不倒’的革命奇迹，第二天就能到林州感悟‘自力更生、艰苦创业、团结协作、无私奉献’的红旗渠精神。”安阳市文化广电体育旅游局相关负责人说，对安阳而言，除了聚焦省会郑州，信阳、驻马店、漯河等豫南城市的客源市场也将被彻底激活，过去辗转换乘才能抵达的太行山村，如今一张车票即可直达。
六 | 记者从国铁郑州局了解到，7月1日至8月24日，红旗渠站累计发送旅客22811人，较去年同期增长357%。 此外，安阳还配套推出“凭当次列车票享景区门票、酒店住宿折扣”政策，将铁路“流量”快速转化为文旅“留量”，实现“出站即达景区、下车即入乡村”的无缝衔接，让“坐着火车游安阳”从概念变成触手可及的出游体验。 在信阳新县，河南实施“1235”交旅融合示范工程。省文化和旅游厅资源开发处相关负责人介绍，1是打造“新县县城—鄂豫皖苏区首府革命博物馆—田铺大塆”红色旅游主轴，2是贯通县域内环线、鄂豫皖三省跨省环线红色旅游环线，3是建设县城、田铺、沙窝旅游集散中心，5是开通5条红色旅游专线。 在5条红色旅游专线中，连接鄂豫皖苏区首府革命博物馆与田铺大塆研学基地的专线不仅配备红色故事语音导览系统，还安排志愿者沿途讲解革命历史，让15分钟的车程成为“移动红色课堂”。 同时，新县在沿大别山高速公路服务区增设红色旅游咨询台，提供景区预约、研学路线推荐、住宿预订等“一站式”服务，并在县域内建设12个乡村旅游自驾营地，配套充电桩、露营帐篷、红色主题餐厅，满足家庭研学、团队考察的多样化需求。 我省还持续打造智慧交旅场景，提升红色旅游便捷度。兰考积极运用5G、大数据、VR等技术，开发“交旅融合服务平台”，实现“一码通行”“一键预约”，让红色旅游更智能、更高效。“我们推出焦裕禄精神数字地图，通过手机定位即可查询周边红色景点、交通线路，还能‘AR打卡’焦裕禄同志纪念馆、焦桐等标志性地点，有效提升了年轻群体的参与度。”焦裕禄同志纪念馆相关负责人介绍。 创新模式 打造红色教育沉浸式体验 模拟射击、编织草鞋……在八路军驻洛办事处纪念馆，一群小朋友在家长带领下参加“少年军校”夏令营。孩子们穿上军装变身“八路军小战士”，以沉浸式的角色体验，体悟革命岁月，传承红色精神，锤炼坚毅品格。 进入暑期，全省各地红色景区、革命旧址、红色纪念馆迎来参观热潮，人们走进革命老区、红色场馆，重温峥嵘岁月，凝聚奋进精神。 “近期，广大市民、干部职工、少年儿童以及省内外高校学生纷纷走进纪念馆，开展红色研学、暑期社会实践等系列活动。”八路军驻洛办事处纪念馆相关负责人介绍，7月份累计接待游客2.5万余人次。
七 | 《旅游强国建设“十五五”规划》提出要实施红色旅游提质升级行动。河南依托丰富的红色资源，以“让红色基因代代传”为目标，设计多元化研学课程，建设标准化研学基地，推动红色研学旅游从“走马观花”向“深度参与”转变。 在“红色+文化+自然”融合研学领域，兰考推出“焦裕禄精神+生态保护”研学路线，学生们在焦裕禄同志纪念馆学习治沙事迹后，前往张庄“治沙遗址”参与植树活动，在黄河湾风景区开展“黄河生态调研”，通过测量水质、观察鸟类，理解“绿水青山就是金山银山”理念；新县田铺大塆则将红色研学与非遗文化结合，学生们在参观田铺大塆创客小镇后，跟随非遗传承人学习剪纸、竹编技艺，实现红色教育与传统文化传承的有机融合。 从初心始发地到遍布城乡的“红色地图”，从沉浸式的场馆课堂到山水间的长征步道，红色旅游正以思想深度叩击心灵，以参与热度点燃激情，以情感温度温润岁月，成为全民共赴的精神之旅。 为推动研学旅游常态化发展，河南从基地建设、导师培养、安全管理等方面入手，构建完善的配套保障体系。 “河南已建成省级红色研学基地28家，其中国家级研学基地有5家。
八 | ”省文化和旅游厅资源开发处相关负责人说。 新县“大别红营”研学实践营地占地面积300亩，配备标准化宿舍、食堂、多功能教室、户外拓展场地，可同时容纳2000名学员开展研学活动。营地内还设有“红色图书馆”，收藏革命历史书籍5000余册，为学员提供丰富的学习资料。 该县教育局“大别红营”服务中心工作人员介绍，每年设立1000万元人才奖励扶持资金，与郑州旅游职业学院、信阳师范大学合作开展“红色研学导师定向培养计划”，邀请历史学者、革命后代、非遗传承人担任兼职导师，定期开展培训。目前，新县已培育专业研学导师320余名，涵盖历史、文化、生态、安全等多个领域。 建设品牌 保持红色旅游生命力 8月5日，由河南、安徽、湖北、陕西、甘肃、宁夏六省（自治区）文物部门联合主办，河南博物院等多家文博机构共同承办的“北上先锋 红心向党——红二十五军长征革命文物联展”在河南博物院启幕。
九 | 本次联展汇集200余件珍贵革命文物与500余幅史料图片，通过“抗日救亡 勇赴国难”“奉命转移 挥师北上”“开辟新区 巩固壮大”“勇当先锋 转战西北”“永坪会师 光耀千秋”等五大核心篇章，全景式再现了红二十五军历时十个月、征程近万里的孤军远征之路。 展览相关负责人表示，广大党员群众及青少年走进河南博物院，透过珍贵文物回望烽火岁月，汲取奋进力量，感悟革命先辈们坚定的理想信念与不怕牺牲的革命意志，在可触摸的历史中接受深刻的党性教育与精神洗礼。 推动品牌可持续发展是保持红色旅游生命力的关键。“我们注重红色品牌的长期建设，通过更新展览内容、升级设施、跨界合作，让红色品牌常新常红。”省文化和旅游厅资源开发处相关负责人告诉记者。 在内容更新方面，各场馆结合主题举办展览、演出—— 河南博物院举办“启明中原——李大钊与河南革命的峥嵘岁月”特展，系统梳理李大钊六次赴河南播撒革命火种的革命足迹；新县鄂豫皖苏区首府革命博物馆举办“铁流——红四方面军在大别山的征战历程”专题展，展示红四方面军在大别山的诞生与发展历程；新乡南太行旅游度假区推出大型抗战实景剧《太行山传奇》，以1944年八路军在太行山抗击日军的历史为主题，运用实景布景、烟火特效、真人表演，让观众“身临其境”感受抗战岁月。
十 | 在设施升级方面，各场馆引入数字技术提升展览体验—— 新县在鄂豫皖苏区首府革命博物馆设置“全息投影剧场”，通过全息技术重现刘邓大军千里跃进大别山的场景；红旗渠景区在青年洞设置“互动屏幕”，游客触摸屏幕即可查看修渠人的事迹、青年洞的修建过程；焦裕禄同志纪念馆开发“VR体验项目”，游客佩戴VR设备即可“走进”焦裕禄同志当年的办公室、治沙现场，增强展览的趣味性与感染力。 在跨界合作方面，多方推动与教育、体育、农业等产业融合—— 新县与河南农业大学合作，在田铺大塆建设“红色+农业”研学基地，开展“农耕体验+红色教育”活动；兰考与体育部门合作，举办“焦裕禄精神”马拉松比赛，赛道串联红色景点，让参赛者在运动中感受红色文化；红旗渠景区与高校合作设立“红旗渠精神研究基金”，资助红色文化研究项目，为品牌建设提供智力支持。 省文化和旅游厅资源开发处相关负责人认为，在讲好红色故事的实践中各地已形成成熟路径：精准定位品牌核心价值，深度挖掘红色资源背后的思想内核与时代价值；创新分众表达，实景演出、短视频、VR沉浸多形式并行；培育青少年与基层宣讲队伍，适配青年传播习惯；推动红色文化与乡村振兴、非遗传承、旅游消费融合，让红色故事可感可知、让红色文化入脑入心。 编辑：祝萍返回，查看更多。
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