After a four-day investigation that ended on Sunday, a Japanese
historian has found more evidence of germ warfare used by the
Japanese in the 1940s in Yiwu in East China's Zhejiang Province.
"The Japanese germ warfare has damaged the social structure in
the Chinese countryside and even family ties," said Makoto Ueda, a
49-year-old professor of history with the Rikkyo University in
Tokyo, who plans to write a book based on 47 family genealogies
from Chongshan Village.
According to his findings, 404 villagers, or a third of the
village's population then, were killed by the plague in the autumn
of 1942. 23 families were wiped out altogether.
"Chinese society was composed of clans," said Ueda, noting that
most people in a village share a common ancestor and surname. Germ
warfare almost annihilated four generations from a 1,000-year-old
family line, he added.
It also affected the confidence and kinship among family
members. "Some of the Wang people escaped to other places and lost
their family ties."
Studies by Chinese and foreign scholars have shown that between
1931 and 1945, some 270,000 Chinese people fell victim to Japanese
germ warfare.
Ueda, who has spent over 20 years studying the history of rural
China, plans to title his new book, "Plague and Village". He
intends to publish it in the first half of next year.
He hopes that the book would help more Japanese understand
Chinese culture and boost mutual understanding and friendship
between the two nations.
Ueda's last piece of writing on the subject in 1998 was based on
a visit to Chongshan Village and has been included in Japanese
middle school textbooks.
On November 15, 2000, Ueda testified before a grand jury for
Chinese germ warfare victims and the relatives of those
deceased.
(Xinhua News Agency August 21, 2006)