Researcher Ties Japan to Abandoned Chemical Weapons Cleanup in China

A Japanese researcher has said the government in Tokyo bears responsibility for destroying the chemical weapons Japan abandoned in China and for restoring the areas those weapons contaminated.

Shizuyo Yamauchi heads the Poison Gas Island Historical Research Institute, a civic group that documents and preserves the history of Okunoshima, a small island in Japan's Seto Inland Sea. She and her husband, Masayuki Yamauchi, the institute's executive director, have spent years investigating that history and promoting peace education.

Okunoshima covers roughly 0.7 square kilometres and is today better known as "rabbit island," drawing visitors from Japan and overseas. During the war, however, it was a key site run by the Imperial Japanese Army for manufacturing poison gas, and the chemical agents produced there were used against civilians and military personnel.

Yamauchi's father was conscripted as a medic and sent to China during Japan's invasion. After his discharge he was posted to Okunoshima as a guard, where he inspected workers' belongings because gas production was a closely guarded secret.

She recalled that her father never discussed those years. "I was born in 1948, and throughout my childhood, I never heard my father speak about the experiences behind this," she said. She remembered him buying an "inhaler" to spray steam into his throat and coughing violently at night, without ever explaining why.

Much of the gas made on the island was shipped to China and used on the battlefield, causing heavy casualties. Some chemical shells were left behind, and they continue to threaten residents in the areas where they remain.

Her father's silence prompted Yamauchi to dig into the island's past, an inquiry that eventually drew the couple toward China. They travelled there to meet people harmed by abandoned Japanese chemical weapons and invited some of those victims to Japan.

Yamauchi recounted the case of a Chinese doctor who was asked to examine a canister unearthed at a factory. He inhaled toxic substances during the inspection and fell into a coma, while hospital staff also suffered injuries.

With the Chemical Weapons Convention in force, she said, Japan is required to finish destroying the abandoned weapons in China. "The Japanese government bears responsibility for the war and must, as soon as possible, restore the affected areas contaminated by these abandoned chemical weapons to a state of clean water and soil," she said.

During the war Japan built a comprehensive chemical warfare system. Okunoshima produced the gas, the Sone Manufacturing Plant in Kyushu filled shells with chemical agents, and the Narashino Army School in Chiba Prefecture trained personnel for chemical warfare.

Those activities violated the Geneva Protocol. To hide them, the military kept the construction and operation of the Okunoshima facility secret for the duration of the war. According to the Okunoshima Poison Gas Museum, the island was guarded around the clock, windows facing the sea had to be covered on trains running along the opposite coast, and at one point the island was removed from maps altogether.