The Museum of the Deceased Miners of the Liaoyuan Coal Mine in Jilin Province, China, August 7, 2025. /CFP
Editor’s word: Zhou Yaxin, a particular commentator on present affairs for CGTN, is an observer on worldwide affairs. The article displays the writer’s opinions and never essentially the views of CGTN.
Shilu Iron Mine, positioned in Changjiang Li Autonomous County, Hainan Province, is named Asia’s premier high-grade iron ore deposit. Today, vacationers would discover it a scenic spot with lush greenery, clear rivers and steam trains. However, over 80 years in the past, the land was brutally plundered by the Japanese military and stained with the blood and sweat of Chinese laborers.
Living hell for ‘Hong Kong coolies’
During the conflict of aggression towards China, with the purpose of plundering Shilu Iron Mine’s sources, the Japanese military seized over 40,000 laborers from Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, Xiamen, and Hainan, amongst different locations, by means of compelled conscription, enticement and abduction. Among them had been greater than 20,000 “Hong Kong coolies” identified for his or her origins from Hong Kong and Guangdong.
Suffering from hunger and with ragged clothes, every laborer was compelled to work over 10 hours a day, sorting at the very least 8 tons of ore. The Japanese military confirmed utter disregard for his or her lives: slacking or trying to flee would result in brutal beating, stay burial, burning, toxin injection and even public beheading. A survivor recalled dying coolies being thrown into fires, and those that tried to flee being dragged again. Over 30,000 laborers misplaced their lives resulting from extraordinarily harsh situations and torture. Records present that solely about 100 individuals survived from a gaggle of 484 Hong Kong coolies.
Shilu Iron Mine stands as proof of Japan’s plunder of China’s sources and enslavement of the Chinese individuals. It can be an instance of the grave atrocities Japanese militarists inflicted on Asian peoples.
State-led systematic labor exploitation
To maintain its conflict machine in order that “the war feeds itself,” Japanese militarists launched a top-down, state-led systematic labor exploitation. Through deception, arrest, detention and compelled conscription, it kidnapped numerous younger and middle-aged individuals, together with college students, staff, farmers and prisoners of conflict (POW), from China, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia and different areas. They had been despatched both to Japan or occupied territories and compelled into high-risk labor comparable to highway development, mining, land reclamation and army engineering underneath inhumane situations.
Statistics present the Japanese military conscripted tens of hundreds of thousands of Chinese laborers, amongst whom 38,935 had been despatched to Japan following the outbreak of the Pacific War. During Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945, hundreds of thousands of native residents turned compelled laborers, with some 780,000 despatched abroad. Between 1942 and 1945, a whole lot of 1000’s of Southeast Asian laborers and Allied POWs had been conscripted to construct the Burma and Sumatra railways.
The large enslavement was a state crime with clear authorized and institutional backing.
In China, Japan issued ordinances by means of the Manchukuo puppet regime and arrange specialised companies and native branches in occupied areas to implement labor conscription by way of quota allocation and violence. After the Pacific War broke out, the Tojo Cabinet intensified plunder by establishing specialised our bodies in North and East China.
On the Korean Peninsula, Japan issued the State General Mobilization Law and the National Conscription Order to achieve full management over manpower, sources and funds of its colonies. The army was liable for seizing and transporting laborers and the zaibatsu conglomerates recruiting them. Guidelines had been additionally put in place to brutally suppress resistance.
In Southeast Asia, the Japanese military launched the kinro hoshi (unpaid labor service) marketing campaign, underneath which ethnic Chinese aged between 14 and 40 in Malaya and the Philippines had been compelled into labor. A complete of 4.1 million individuals, together with natives, Dutch civilians and POWs in Indonesia, had been conscripted.
Inhumane torture and massacres
Beyond long-time, intensive and extreme unpaid work, the laborers additionally suffered heinous torture and massacres by the Japanese military. Thai-Myanmar Railway: A Personal Memoir recorded a few of these atrocities. A gaggle of laborers was crushed over six lacking throughout a headcount; a younger man who resisted the humiliation of his father was shot useless on the spot.
At Datong Coal Mine in Shanxi, China, the Japanese military arrange army and mine police, constructed bunkers, watchtowers and electrified barbed wire, and used barbaric means to suppress miners. On the Korean Peninsula, laborers had been abused and killed for no cause. Those who tried to flee had been dragged by a rope by means of the nostril and executed. A Chinese folks ballad lamented, “Hell has eighteen levels, and beneath the very lowest lie the miners.” Countless laborers died of exhaustion and torture; those that resisted had been massacred and their stays wantonly discarded. Mass graves on the coal mines in Liaoyuan, Datong and Benxi are irrefutable proof of Japan’s conflict crimes.
A person visits a memorial corridor for martyrs and Chinese compelled laborers in Japan, in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, September 18, 2025. /Xinhua
Japan’s evasion of accountability condemned internationally
Shortly earlier than the defeat in August 1945, the Japanese authorities secretly ordered the destruction of archives to cowl up its crimes, laying the groundwork for historic denial and distortion. For many years, right-wing politicians have overtly denied compelled labor. In April 2021, the Japanese cupboard even determined it was “inappropriate” to make use of the time period “forced conscription,” and that textbooks ought to use “mobilization” as an alternative.
The Japanese authorities additionally tried to whitewash its previous by means of the inscription of the Sites of Meiji Industrial Revolution on UNESCO’s World Heritage List whereas protecting up the actual fact concerning Korean compelled laborers on Hashima Island and referring to the victims as those that “supported Japan’s industrial development.” Such strikes have provoked robust worldwide condemnation.
Surviving laborers and their households from China, the Republic of Korea and different nations have filed quite a few lawsuits, demanding the Japanese authorities and firms like Mitsui and Mitsubishi settle for accountability, apologize and supply compensation. Yet the Japanese authorities has constantly tried to evade accountability. Only a handful of Japanese enterprises have reached settlements with victims.
Acknowledging historical past and repenting: The solely path ahead
This chapter of historical past, leaving a heinous stain on the ethical conscience of humanity, shall not be distorted or erased. The compelled recruitment of laborers, dedicated by Japanese militarists, is against the law towards humanity. How can a rustic that refuses to acknowledge historical past and repent on its crimes name itself a “peace-loving nation,” or be forgiven and trusted by the worldwide neighborhood?
Remembering historical past is to not perpetuate hatred, however to attract classes and forewarn the long run. For Japan, solely by squarely dealing with the previous, participating in deep soul-searching and absolutely redressing its conflict crimes can it stroll out of the shadow, obtain real peace and reconciliation, and forestall the recurrence of such humanitarian disasters.
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Source: CGTN