A collection of documents tracing the enslavement of Chinese laborers by Japanese businesses during World War II went on display Monday in the city of Changchun, the capital of northeast China's Jilin Province.

The 47-file collection contains evidence that at least 63 Japanese companies operating in northeast China used local slave labor. Another 76 military units and their operations also forced local Chinese to work for them under unbearable conditions.

Cheng Guoru, deputy director of Jilin Provincial Archive says this is the first time the province has opened its files on Chinese slave labor. The opening marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, and the victory of the Chinese War against Japanese Aggression.

He noted the file only covers the Japanese brutality in northeast China during the occupation. The many Chinese laborers taken for enslavement in Japan are not included in these files.

The collection records the stories of Chinese laborers enslaved by Japanese military police and other operations, under the so-called Manchuria installed by Japan in the late 1930s. The files reveal Japanese policies regarding Chinese laborers during the occupation period and include records of child labor and strikes and riots by the Chinese workers.

Jilin Provincial Archive opened part of its collection on the occupation in September 2001 for the 70th anniversary of the Mukden Incident, which was Japan's pretext for invading China. These documents attested to the Japanese military's practice of sending captured Chinese soldiers for virus experiments by the notorious Military Unit 731.

(CRI August 9, 2005)