People visit the former headquarters of Japanese Unit 731 in Harbin, Heilongjiang province. It served as the center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia. LIU YANG/FOR CHINA DAILY
In early June, a painful episode in China's history unfolded before an audience at the Zhejiang Provincial Archives in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, as the confession of a Japanese war criminal was presented by leading researcher Wang Xuan.
Wang, president of the Zhejiang Provincial Historical Society's research association on the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and director of the Yiwu Biological Weapons Archives Research Center, read the account, which has served as strong evidence of the Japanese army's bacteriological warfare in China.
"It indicates that the area where the Japanese troops spread the bacteria was centered around Jinhua in Zhejiang," Wang said at the event.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War. It is also the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Zhejiang Provincial Archives.
During the war, Zhejiang was one of the regions severely affected by the Japanese army's bacteriological warfare program. Chongshan in Yiwu — Wang's hometown — was one of the villages deeply impacted by the plague.
In 1940, Japanese Unit 731, the notorious germ warfare detachment of the Imperial Japanese Army, spread plague-infected fleas in Quxian county. The outbreak quickly spread to Yiwu, causing the epidemic to escalate.
The plague in Yiwu continued until 1944, affecting over 80 villages and taking the lives of more than 1,300 people.