The , was an organization formed on 24 September 1957 following the repatriation to Japan of soldiers from the former

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

who were interned as war criminals in China's

Fushun War Criminals Management Centre Fushun War Criminals Management Centre (), also known as Liaodong No. 3 Prison or Liaoning No. 3 Prison, was the site of the 're-education' of Manchukuo, Kuomintang and Japanese Empire prisoners of war, held by China from 1950 onwards. It was ...

, where interns were subjected to intensive indoctrination by the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victoriou ...

. While the Chinese government chose to prosecute the top Japanese leadership, it

repatriated Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...

accused lower-ranking soldiers to Japan. Once in Japan, they gave testimony about their experience with crimes such as

Unit 731 , short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentatio ...

comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...

, and the

Nanking Massacre The Nanjing Massacre (, ja, 南京大虐殺, Nankin Daigyakusatsu) or the Rape of Nanjing (formerly romanized as ''Nanking'') was the mass murder of Chinese civilians in Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Ba ...

, but often received stringent opposition from Japanese nationalists and militarists, who proclaimed them to be communists or "brainwashed" by the Chinese communist government. Its members included

Yoshio Shinozuka Yoshio Shinozuka (篠塚良雄; 1923 – 20 April 2014) was a Japanese Imperial Army soldier who served as an army medic with a top secret biological warfare group called Unit 731 in World War II.According tAsahi Televisionand other sources He ...

Yasuji Kaneko was an ex-soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army, and a former detainee of both Siberian Internment by the Soviet Union during 1945–1950 and Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in China during 1950–1956. He was known for his extensive war c ...

, ,

Shigeru Fujita was a career military officer and lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Biography Fujita was born in Hiroshima Prefecture, where his father was also a career Japanese Army officer ...

and

Ken Yuasa Ken Yuasa (Japanese: 湯浅謙) (October 23, 1916 – November 2, 2010) was a World War II surgeon for the Japanese army who had been a member of the infamous Unit 731. During his service in occupied China, he (along with at least 1000 other d ...

; the association was disbanded in 2002.

Origins

1109 individuals were interned by the People's Republic of China, 969 in the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre and 140 in the Taiyuan War Criminals Management Centre, on suspicion of having committed war crimes within China during the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. Those held in Fushun had been captured in Manchuria by the USSR and after enduring internment in Siberia were transferred to China in 1950. They included many Japanese soldiers as well as Chinese such as

Puyi Aisin-Gioro Puyi (; 7 February 1906 – 17 October 1967), courtesy name Yaozhi (曜之), was the last emperor of China as the eleventh and final Qing dynasty monarch. He became emperor at the age of two in 1908, but was forced to abdicate on 1 ...

and

Zhang Jinghui Zhang Jinghui (Chang Ching-hui; ; Hepburn: ''Chō Keikei''); (1871 – 1 November 1959) was a Chinese general, warlord and politician during the Warlord era. He is noted for his role in the Japanese puppet regime of Manchukuo in which he served ...

. Those held in Taiyuan included Japanese soldiers who after the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War had joined the Nationalists and fought against the communists during the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on m ...

. In contrast with their time in Siberia, Japanese POWs were given better treatment from the Chinese communists. However, a long-term "crime recognition campaign" was imposed at the same time on those soldiers who were believed to have undertaken, supported, and witnessed Japan's numerous and inhumane criminal acts during the war. This involved them reflecting on their own actions up to then and confessing their sins voluntarily, a process later described by Chukiren's detractors as "

brainwashing Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...

". During the campaign, some interns killed themselves. Under the authority of the "Decision of the

Standing Committee of the National People's Congress The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPCSC) is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which is the highest organ of state po ...

Concerning Punishment of Japanese Troops Who Invaded China" of April 1956, the trials of 45 leading war criminals were undertaken in extraordinary military tribunals set up in

Shenyang Shenyang (, ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ), formerly known as Fengtian () or by its Manchu language, Manchu name Mukden, is a major China, Chinese sub-provincial city and the List of capitals in China#Province capitals, provincial capital of Lia ...

Liaoning Liaoning () is a coastal province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and is the northernmost ...

, and

Taiyuan Taiyuan (; ; ; Mandarin pronunciation: ; also known as (), ()) is the capital and largest city of Shanxi Province, People's Republic of China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. ...

Shanxi Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...

, between June and July. All the rest of the war crime suspects were pronounced at special courts within their internment centres to be exempt from prosecution and to be released immediately. In 1957 some of these repatriated former war criminals whose sins were forgiven by the Chinese founded the Association of Returnees from China and launched an anti-war, pacifist movement and a campaign for Sino-Japanese friendship.

Activities and criticism

At the heart of Chukiren's mission was exposing the foolishness of war, especially through testifying to the things that they themselves did in the war and on the battlefield. They were known for being very active in testifying about and cooperating with witnesses of things such as

, forced labor recruitment of Koreans,

, and the

. Because of this, many of the returnees ended up being branded as "

red Red is the color at the long wavelength end of the visible spectrum of light, next to orange and opposite violet. It has a dominant wavelength of approximately 625–740 nanometres. It is a primary color in the RGB color model and a secondar ...

" regardless of their personal beliefs and experienced mistreatment in post-war Japan. Writers such as Toshio Tanabe have also argued that the Japanese officers and men interned at Fushun were brainwashed by China. The returnees who gained their freedom thanks to China's lenient pardon when they should have been sentenced to a long-term or indefinite imprisonment or death were deeply grateful to the Chinese government, but they don't go so far as to deny the fact that China's true intention was that they, due to their ideological training, were useful people to be set free as disseminators of their ideas under a debt of gratitude to China for letting them off.

Dissolution

Due to the aging of its members, the Association of Returnees from China was disbanded as a national organization in 2002 and its work was carried on by the "Continuing the Miracle of Fushun Society" composed of younger activists.

References

Bibliography

* Toshio Arai and

Akira Fujiwara was a Japanese historian. His academic speciality was modern Japanese history and he was a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University. In 1980 he became a member of the Science Council of Japan and was a former chairman of the Historical Scien ...

, 侵略の証言―中国における日本人戦犯自筆供述書 (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1999). * 中国侵略の証言者たち -「認罪」の記録を読む, edited by Fujio Ogino, Yoshida Yutaka, and Makio Okabe (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2010).

External links