Japan needs to face history and reflect on past crimes, China says

Japan can only truly move toward the future by thoroughly reflecting on its wartime aggression and sincerely repenting for its crimes, a Chinese defense ministry spokesman said on Friday.

Senior Colonel Chen Xi, spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks when commenting on renewed public attention to the atrocities committed by Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.

His comments came after documentaries in Singapore and Japan drew renewed attention to Unit 731. A Singapore-produced documentary, Inside Unit 731: Japan's Secret Human Experiments, was recently named the best history documentary and has drawn more than 1.45 million views on YouTube.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK also aired a documentary titled The Secret Unit: The Silent Postwar Era, which used newly discovered photographs and testimony from people with firsthand knowledge to examine crimes committed by Unit 731.

Chen said Unit 731 carried out inhumane experiments on living people and conducted biological warfare during Japan's invasion of China, acts that seriously violated international law and constituted grave crimes against humanity.

"The historical truth will not disappear, and the evidence of the crimes committed by the invading Japanese forces is irrefutable and cannot be denied," Chen said, citing views expressed by people in Japan who have called for an honest reckoning with the country's wartime history.

He also said recent attempts by Japanese right-wing forces to use emerging technologies to tamper with data and distort public understanding of history had again raised concerns in the international community.

Chen said efforts to whitewash Japan's wartime aggression or deny historical facts would not change the record of what happened.