Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, I must again note for the record my objection to this hearing and to the resolution that has been proposed by my colleague, Representative Kotler.
The Second World War was an extraordinary time during which the ordinary rules of human conduct did not apply, and there is no doubt that terrible events occurred and terrible suffering resulted. But whatever happened—and we have no definitive proof of anything other than the results of some sensational high-energy physics that no one present, other than Dr. Kirino herself, understands—it would be a mistake for us to become slaves to history, and to subject the present to the control of the past.
The Japan of today is the most important ally of the United States in the Pacific, if not the world, while the People’s Republic of China takes daily steps to challenge our interests in the region. Japan is vital in our efforts to contain and confront the Chinese threat.
It is ill-advised at best, and counterproductive at worst, for Representative Kotler to introduce his resolution at this time. The resolution will no doubt embarrass and dishearten our ally and give encouragement and comfort to our challengers at a time when we cannot afford to indulge in theatrical sentiments, premised upon stories told by emotional witnesses who may have been experiencing “illusions,” and I am quoting the words of Dr. Kirino, the creator of the technology involved.
Again, I must call upon the Subcommittee to stop this destructive, useless process.
Representative Kotler:
Mr. Chairman, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the chance to respond to Representative Hogart.
It’s easy to hide behind intransitive verbal formulations like “terrible events occurred” and “suffering resulted.” And I am sorry to hear my honored colleague, a member of the United States Congress, engage in the same shameful tactics of denial and evasion employed by those who denied that the Holocaust was real.
Every successive Japanese government, with the encouragement and complicity of the successive administrations in this country, has refused to even acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the activities of Unit 731. In fact, for many years, the Unit’s very existence was unacknowledged. These denials and refusals to face Japanese atrocities committed during the Second World War form a pattern of playing-down and denial of the war record, whether we are talking about the so-called “comfort women,” ?The Nanjing Massacre, or the forced slave laborers of Korea and China. This pattern has harmed the relationship of Japan with its Asian neighbors.
The issue of Unit 731 presents its unique challenges. Here, the United States is not an uninterested third party. As an ally and close friend of Japan, it is the duty of the United States to point out where our friend has erred. But more than that, the United States played an active role in helping the perpetrators of the crimes of Unit 731 escape justice. General MacArthur granted the men of Unit 731 immunity to get their experimental data. We are in part responsible for the denials and the cover-ups because we valued the tainted fruits of those atrocities more than we valued our own integrity. We have sinned as well.
What I want to emphasize is that Representative Hogart has misunderstood the resolution. What the witnesses and I are asking for, Mr. Chairman, is not some admission of guilt by the present government of Japan or its people. What we are asking for is a declaration from this body that it is the belief of the United States Congress that the victims of Unit 731 should be honored and remembered, and that the perpetrators of these heinous crimes be condemned. There is no bill of attainder here, no corruption of blood. We are not calling on Japan to pay compensation. All we are asking for is a commitment to truth, a commitment to remember.
Like memorials to the Holocaust, the value of such a declaration is simply a public affirmation of our common bond of humanity with the victims and our unity in standing against the ideology of evil and barbarity of the Unit 731 butchers and the Japanese militarist society that permitted and ordered such evil.
Now, I want to make it clear that “Japan” is not a monolithic thing, and it is not just the Japanese government. Individual Japanese citizens have done heroic work in bringing these atrocities to light throughout the years, almost always against government resistance and against the public’s wish to forget and move on. And I offer them my heartfelt thanks.
The truth cannot be brushed away, and the families of the victims and the people of China should not be told that justice is not possible, that because their present government is repugnant to the government of the United States, that a great injustice should be covered up and hidden from the judgment of the world. Is there any doubt that this nonbinding resolution, or even much more stringent versions of it, would have passed without trouble if the victims were a people whose government has the favor of the United States? If we, for “strategic” reasons, sacrifice the truth in the name of gaining something of value for short-term advantage, then we will have simply repeated the errors of our forefathers at the end of the War.
It is not who we are. Dr. Wei has offered us a way to speak the truth about the past, and we must ask the government of Japan and our government to stand up and take up our collective responsibility to history.
Li Ruming, Director of the Department of History, Zhejiang University, the People’s Republic of China:
When I was finishing my doctorate in Boston, Evan and Akemi often had my wife and me over to their place. They were very friendly and helpful and made us feel the enthusiasm and warmth that America is rightly famous for. Unlike many Chinese Americans I met, Evan did not give off a sense that he felt he was superior to the Chinese from the mainland. It was wonderful to have him and Akemi as lifelong friends and not have every interaction between us filtered through the lens of the politics between our two countries, as is so often the case between Chinese and American scholars.
Because I am his friend and I am also Chinese, it is difficult for me to speak about Evan’s work with objectivity, but I will try my best.
When Evan first announced his intention to go to Harbin and try to travel to the past, the Chinese government was cautiously supportive. As none of it had been tried before, the full implications of Evan’s destructive process for time travel were not yet clear. Due to destruction of evidence at the end of the War and continuing stonewalling by the Japanese government, we do not have access to large archives of documentary evidence and artifacts from Unit 731, and it was felt that Evan’s work would help fill in the gap by providing firsthand accounts of what happened. The Chinese government granted Evan and Akemi visas under the assumption that their work would help promote Western understanding of China’s historical disputes with Japan.
But they wanted to monitor his work. The War is deeply emotional for my compatriots, its unhealed wounds exacerbated by years of postwar disputes with Japan, and as such, it was not politically feasible for the government to not be involved. World War Two was not the distant past, involving ancient peoples, and China could not permit two foreigners to go traipsing through that recent history like adventurers through ancient tombs.
But from Evan’s point of view—and I think he was justified in his belief—any support, monitoring, or affiliation with the Chinese government would have destroyed all credibility for his work in Western eyes.