Japan should acknowledge and take responsibility for its wartime
atrocities in China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a
press conference in Beijing Wednesday.
Kong had been asked to comment on a ruling by Tokyo District Court
on a lawsuit taken by Chinese victims of bacteriological and
chemical warfare conducted by the Japanese army's Unit 731 during
World War II.
On
Tuesday, the Tokyo court became the first Japanese court to
recognize in a ruling that Unit 731 and other units of the Japanese
army had engaged in germ warfare in China during World War II, but
the court rejected the Chinese plaintiffs' claim for
compensation.
Kong said China noted the ruling. The invaded Japanese army
conducted bacteriological and chemical experiments and used
bacteriological and chemical weapons in China that caused heavy
casualties among the Chinese people during the war.
"The facts are undeniable,'' Kong stressed. "The Japanese side
should take a responsible attitude towards its history and towards
reality and correctly acknowledge and deal with history,'' the
spokesman added.
The court's rejection of the compensation claims has sparked wide
indignation and protest in China.
Yang Dafang, a plaintiff from Quzhou in East China's
Zhejiang Province, said: "We swear to keep fighting against the
evil until the final victory of justice. Otherwise, Chinese victims
of Unit 731 will never forgive the atrocity.''
Lawyers from both China and Japan had predicted that the Chinese
plaintiffs would win their lawsuit because, the lawyers said, the
plaintiffs had collected sufficient authentic evidence from Changde
in Central China's Hunan
Province and from Zhejiang Province, where the Japanese army
waged germ warfare on ordinary residents.
Wang Xuan, head of the plaintiff group, said that the lawsuit was
part of a long and difficult fight, which would continue into the
future.
"We expected to use a victory in the lawsuit to comfort the spirit
of the thousands of victims killed by germ warfare,'' Wang
added.
(
August 29, 2002)