Download - Canada ALPHA

"Regarding the issue of biological weapons, the Japanese report did not directly mention Unit 731, while the
Chinese version explicitly described that biological and chemical warfare was committed by the Japanese, and
that Unit 731 carried out experiments on Chinese subjects."
Koga remains concerned that given the sensitivity of the subject at hand, "if exaggerated information
about this issue is disseminated, this might instigate anti-Japanese sentiment in China".
"This should be understood as a voluntary movement by the Japanese without any foreign and especially
American pressure to recognize the dark side of Japan's past, in contrast with the recent 'comfort women'
issue," said Yoshikawa. "It often takes time in Japan, but wait in patience, and things will move."
Thanks in great part to the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the concerted pressure exerted by a
particularly persistent and unyielding Japanese civic organization—the Association Demanding Investigation
on Human Bones Discovered from the Site of the Army Medical College—Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor
and Welfare approved the excavation in Shinjuku.
"The health minister under the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) cabinet of Junichiro
Koizumi promised in June 2006 to continue investigations of human remains at the old army medical college
originally found in 1989. He was, in fact, responding to questions from a representative of the DPJ," said
Professor Frederick Dickinson of the University of Pennsylvania.
"A proper accounting of this issue has, in other words, been DPJ policy since at least 2006 and, it is
safe to say, with the DPJ now in power since last September, it makes sense for the party to move on the
investigation. Funds for the new excavation were approved in the latest budget approval in the parliament at
the beginning of March."
In effect, this issue is one of many others including a friendlier relationship with China, and a harder line
on the US - Japan security treaty that the DPJ has used to distinguish itself from the LDP and that it is now
trying to capitalize on.
"Now that the DPJ has completely backtracked on its hard-line stance vis-à-vis the US, it needs to
maintain some semblance of its identity of being the 'reform' party. The medical college site issue, although
a very small one compared to the US-Japan security alliance, is one small way of doing so," said Dickinson.
While there has been a long history of revelations in Japan about wartime Japanese atrocities and while
some might argue that the Japanese are very aware of them, many view Japan as moving ahead too slowly and
still dragging its feet. "There has been insuffi cient Japanese scholarly or governmental investigation of these
episodes and this new investigation is long overdue. A large part of Japan's diffi culty addressing these issues
was that the conservative LDP had in its DNA ties to the pre-war leadership, while the left in Japan had a
political agenda that went beyond truth and reconciliation and was therefore suspect from the beginning," said
Michael Green, senior adviser and Japan chair at CSIS in Washington, DC.
With the rapid recent rise of the DPJ, more space has perhaps emerged for less politically motivated
inquiries that can enjoy broader political support. "This is not the same Japan," said Green. "And coming at
a time of sagging confi dence among Japanese citizens about the future, it will be important for the emerging
generation of leaders to expose and learn from this tragic history while also instilling pride and confi dence in
Japan's role in the world."
Japan must prepare for what will surely be an extremely sensitive and perhaps painful episode.
"Japan's biological warfare program in China was, as far as we know, the fi rst use of scientifi cally organized
germ warfare in history," Iris Chang told the Shanghai Star in March, 2004 just a few months before she took
her own life. Chang, a noted Chinese-American historian, is best remembered for her book The Rape of
Nanking, about the atrocities committed there by Japanese occupation forces in 1937.
A close friend and former instructor of Chang informed this writer in 2008 that she was unaware that
Chang was engaged in any in-depth research focused on Japan's BW program before and during World War
II. Still, Chang appeared to know quite a lot about what transpired. She must have known that Unit 1644
established a forward base in Nanjing. Unit 1644 specialized in BW like Unit 731 and conducted extensive BW
151