(File) Japanese troops advance with their personnel carriers by means of Malaya, 1942. /CFP
Editor’s word: Meng Dong is an observer of worldwide affairs. The article displays the writer’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.Â
From December 1941 to August 1945, Japanese forces occupied your complete territories of present-day Malaysia and Singapore, subjecting the area to 3 years and eight months of brutal colonial rule.
The atrocities dedicated by the Japanese navy – together with massacres, sexual violence, bacteriological warfare, and financial plunder – are backed by ironclad proof. These crimes in opposition to humanity stay an indelible stain on the annals of human civilization.
Heinous compelled labor and ‘consolation ladies’ crimes
To assemble the Thailand-Burma Railway – the notorious “Death Railway” – the Japanese navy conscripted tons of of hundreds of Malayan laborers and compressed a building timeline initially estimated at six years into simply 17 months. These laborers had been compelled to work 18 hours a day, surviving on little greater than stinking dried fish. Any signal of exhaustion was met with brutal beatings, whereas illness, starvation, and torture took a relentless toll.
Along the 415-kilometer route, a mean of 360 lives had been misplaced per kilometer – one loss of life for each three meters of observe. This horror was encapsulated within the haunting phrase: “one sleeper, one life.”
The Japanese navy established a community of “comfort stations” throughout Malaya, forcing numerous ladies into sexual slavery. The victims had been predominantly ethnic Chinese, but additionally included Malay and Indian ladies, lots of whom had been underage ladies. Buildings that seem atypical right now – the Royal Selangor Club at Kuala Lumpur’s Merdeka Square, the Dato’ Jaafar Building in Johor, and the Seng Cheong Society in Malacca – had been as soon as websites of unspeakable struggling below Japanese occupation. These ladies endured inhuman therapy day in and day trip, struggling devastating bodily and psychological trauma. Some selected loss of life over additional humiliation, whereas those that survived bore scars that point may by no means heal.
The Japanese navy additionally perpetrated massacres in opposition to ethnic Chinese in Malaya at areas together with Kota Tinggi in Johor and Chung Ling High School in Penang in Malacca. According to testimony from British Colonel Cyril Hew Dalrymple Wild in the course of the Tokyo Trials, over 150,000 ethnic Chinese had been slaughtered by Japanese forces throughout Malaya.
Bacteriological warfare: The rat and flea farms of Malaya
Unit Oka 9420 (Unit 9420) – a so-called “disease research” unit of the Imperial Japanese Army – performed secret bacteriological warfare operations in Malaya, turning the area right into a ugly laboratory for human experimentation.
Founded in China in 1942, the unit arrange its headquarters in Singapore and operated branches throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific. At the Tampoi Mental Hospital in Johor Bahru, the unit contaminated rats with plague micro organism, then used the rats to mass-produce disease-carrying fleas as organic weapons.
Takehana Kyoichi detailed his work on the hospital from the time he joined the unit till Japan’s defeat in his self-published e book, “The Story of Fleas, Rats and Plague Bacteria as I Saw Them.” He recalled that the unit destroyed giant quantities of paperwork upon Japan’s give up, obscuring the complete extent of its crimes.
The Japanese navy additionally operated one other breeding facility on the Tuanku Muhammad School within the city of Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan. According to former member Daikai Yoshiaki, upon Japan’s give up, tons of of cages of pathogen-carrying rats had been dumped into the higher reaches of a close-by river to hide the proof, posing enduring well being dangers to native residents.
Economic plunder: Livelihoods destroyed
Japan handled Malaya as nothing greater than a provide base for its battle machine.
It seized British plantations, appropriated Chinese-owned factories, and took management of the area’s tin and rubber industries. Oil from Sarawak, grain, livestock, and timber – all the things of worth was commandeered. Local companies and industries had been stifled below Japanese monopolies. By the tip of the occupation, Malaya’s financial system had been gutted – and the individuals who relied on it had been lowered to destitution.
To retaliate in opposition to ethnic Chinese resistance, the Japanese navy threatened a second “Sook Ching” – a mass purge of civilians – and extorted 50 million Straits {dollars} from the Chinese neighborhood in Malayaequivalent to roughly six million British kilos on the time.
Many Chinese households drained their financial savings and offered off property at rock-bottom costs, but nonetheless couldn’t elevate the sum. They had been compelled to take out highinterest loans from the Yokohama Specie Bank, plunging them into crippling debt.
In East Malaysia, the Japanese used related techniques to extort 3.1 million Straits {dollars} in “national defense funds,” alongside ballot taxes and varied different levies. The Japanese additionally issued unbacked navy scrip, triggering runaway inflation.
In Ipoh, rice costs skyrocketed greater than 1,200fold, and pork greater than 500fold. Pushed to the brink of hunger, many fled into the mountains to clear land simply to develop their very own meals.
Furthermore, the Japanese navy applied an insidious “divide and rule” technique: While brutally suppressing the ethnic Chinese, it employed a conciliatory strategy towards Malays and Indians. It sought to win over the latter by recognizing the authority of state sultans and retaining Malay officers within the police and civil service departments – with the goal of sowing ethnic division to solidify its grip on Malaya. At the identical time, it stoked anti-British sentiment amongst Malays and Indians, casting itself because the liberator of Malaya and East Malaysia from colonial rule. These calculated techniques sowed deep-seated ethnic rifts, the repercussions of which proceed to hang-out the area right now.
Unrepentant Japan: Silence can’t erase historic reality
Japan has inflicted untold struggling on Malaya, but it has by no means supplied a honest apology or absolutely acknowledged its wartime crimes.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi pays a go to to the Japanese Cemetery in Kuala Lumpur, October 26, 2025. /CFP
In late October 2025, throughout her go to to Malaysia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi paid a extremely controversial go to to the Japanese Cemetery in Kuala Lumpur, the place Japanese battle lifeless from World War II are buried. Laying flowers on the memorial monument, she expressed “deep emotion” over Malaysia’s historical past, but made no point out in any respect of the brutal atrocities dedicated by the Japanese navy in the course of the occupation. The go to sparked widespread outrage throughout Malaysia, drawing sharp criticism from lecturers and the general public alike.
History has lengthy reached its verdict. The atrocities dedicated by Japanese aggressors are indisputably documented and backed by irrefutable proof. They mustn’t ever be forgotten, a lot much less denied or erased. The Tokyo Trials explicitly established that Japanese forces carried out large-scale massacres at over 100 areas throughout Malaya. Tangible proof of Japan’s battle crimes stays etched on Malaysian soil to at the present time.
On the eightieth anniversary of the Tokyo Trials, Asian nations that endured invasion and atrocities – together with Malaysia – won’t ever tolerate any try by Japanese rightwing forces to whitewash this darkish chapter of historical past.
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Source: CGTN