Editing Second Sino-Japanese War (section)

===Use of chemical and biological weapons===
Despite Article 23 of the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907]], article V of the Treaty in Relation to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Washington_Treaty_in_Relation_to_the_Use_of_Submarines_and_Noxious_Gases_in_Warfare |title=Washington Treaty in Relation to the Use of Submarines and Noxious Gases in Warfare&nbsp;— World War I Document Archive |publisher=Wwi.lib.byu.edu |access-date=2010-12-02 |archive-date=4 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091004221650/http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Washington_Treaty_in_Relation_to_the_Use_of_Submarines_and_Noxious_Gases_in_Warfare |url-status=live }}</ref> article 171 of the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and a resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May 1938, condemning the use of poison gas by the Empire of Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons during the war.

According to Walter E. Grunden, history professor at [[Bowling Green State University]], Japan permitted the use of chemical weapons in China because the Japanese concluded that Chinese forces did not possess the capacity to retaliate in kind.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grunden |first1=W.E. |editor1-last=Friedrich |editor1-first=B. |editor2-last=Hoffmann |editor2-first=D. |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14 |editor3-last=Renn |editor3-first=J. |editor4-last=Schmaltz |editor4-first=F. |editor5-last=Wolf |editor5-first=M. |title=One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment, Consequences |date=2017 |publisher=Springer, Cham |isbn=978-3-319-51663-9 |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14 |chapter=No Retaliation in Kind: Japanese Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II |pages=259–271 |s2cid=158528688 |access-date=28 October 2022 |archive-date=16 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221016161215/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-51664-6_14 |url-status=live }}</ref> The Japanese incorporated gas warfare into many aspects of their army, which includes special gas troops, infantry, artillery, engineers and air force; the Japanese were aware of basic gas tactics of other armies, and deployed multifarious gas warfare tactics in China.<ref>{{cite book|author=United States. War Department. Military Intelligence Division|issue=24 of Special series, United States War Dept|date=1944|title=Enemy Tactics in Chemical Warfare|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA69|publisher=War Department|pages=69–86|access-date=28 October 2022|archive-date=2 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402122509/https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA69|url-status=live}}</ref> The Japanese were very dependent on gas weapons when they were engaged in chemical warfare.<ref>{{cite book|author=United States. War Department. Military Intelligence Division|issue=24 of Special series, United States War Dept|date=1944|title=Enemy Tactics in Chemical Warfare|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA69|publisher=War Department|pages=69|access-date=28 October 2022|archive-date=2 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402122509/https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA69|url-status=live}}</ref>

Japan used poison gas at Hankow during the Battle of Wuhan to break fierce Chinese resistance after conventional Japanese assaults were repelled by Chinese defenders. Rana Mitter writes, {{blockquote|Under General Xue Yue, some 100,000 Chinese troops pushed back Japanese forces at Huangmei. At the fortress of Tianjiazhen, thousands of men fought until the end of September, with Japanese victory assured only with the use of poison gas.{{Sfn|Mitter|2013|p=166}}}}

According to [[Freda Utley]], during the battle at Hankow, in areas where Japanese artillery or gunboats on the river could not reach Chinese defenders on hilltops, Japanese infantrymen had to fight Chinese troops on the hills.<ref name="fredautley1">{{cite book |last=Utley |first=Freda |date=1939 |title=China at War |url=http://www.fredautley.com/pdffiles/book19.pdf |location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |pages=110–112, 170 |access-date=28 October 2022 |archive-date=28 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221028055717/https://fredautley.com/pdffiles/book19.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> She noted that the Japanese were inferior at hand-to-hand combat against the Chinese, and resorted to deploying poison gas to defeat the Chinese troops.<ref name="fredautley1"/> She was told by General [[Li Zongren]] that the Japanese consistently used [[tear gas]] and [[mustard gas]] against Chinese troops.<ref name="fredautley1"/> Li also added that his forces could not withstand large scale deployments of Japanese poison gas.<ref name="fredautley1"/> Since Chinese troops did not have gas-masks, the poison gases provided enough time for Japanese troops to bayonet debilitated Chinese soldiers.<ref name="fredautley1"/>

During the battle in Yichang of October 1941, Japanese troops used chemical munitions in their artillery and mortar fire, and warplanes dropped gas bombs all over the area; since the Chinese troops were poorly equipped and without gas-masks, they were severely gassed, burned and killed.<ref>{{cite book|author=United States. War Department. Military Intelligence Division|issue=24 of Special series, United States War Dept|date=1944|title=Enemy Tactics in Chemical Warfare|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA82|pages=82–83|access-date=28 October 2022|archive-date=2 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230402122514/https://books.google.com/books?id=gq1BAAAAIAAJ&dq=japanese+gas+hand+to+hand+combat&pg=PA82|url-status=live}}</ref>

According to historians [[Yoshiaki Yoshimi]] and Seiya Matsuno, the chemical weapons were authorized by specific orders given by Hirohito himself, transmitted by the Imperial General Headquarters. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the Battle of Wuhan from August to October 1938.<ref>Y. Yoshimi and S. Matsuno, ''Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryō II (Materials on poison gas warfare), Kaisetsu, Hōkan 2, Jugonen Sensō Gokuhi Shiryōshu'', 1997, pp. 27–29</ref> They were also used during the invasion of Changde. Those orders were transmitted either by [[Prince Kan'in Kotohito]] or General [[Hajime Sugiyama]].<ref>Yoshimi and Matsuno, ''idem'', [[Herbert Bix]], Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, 2001, pp. 360–364</ref> Gases manufactured in [[Okunoshima]] were used more than 2,000 times against Chinese soldiers and civilians in the war in China in the 1930s and 1940s<ref>{{cite web | first=Nicholas D. | last=Kristof | title=Okunoshima Journal; A Museum to Remind Japanese of Their Own Guilt | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/12/world/okunoshima-journal-a-museum-to-remind-japanese-of-their-own-guilt.html | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190508142011/https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/12/world/okunoshima-journal-a-museum-to-remind-japanese-of-their-own-guilt.html|archivedate=8 May 2019 | newspaper=The New York Times | date=12 August 1995|accessdate=17 March 2024}}</ref>

[[Bacteriological weapons]] provided by [[Shirō Ishii]]'s units were also profusely used. For example, in 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force bombed [[Ningbo]] with [[flea]]s carrying the [[bubonic plague]].<ref>''Japan triggered bubonic plague outbreak, doctor claims'', [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-triggered-bubonic-plague-outbreak-doctor-claims-704147.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110912142325/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/japan-triggered-bubonic-plague-outbreak-doctor-claims-704147.html|date=12 September 2011}}, Prince [[Tsuneyoshi Takeda]] and [[Prince Mikasa]] received a special screening by [[Shirō Ishii]] of a film showing imperial planes loading germ bombs for bubonic dissemination over Ningbo in 1940. (Daniel Barenblatt, ''A Plague upon Humanity'', 2004, p. 32.) All these weapons were experimented with on humans before being used in the field.</ref> During the [[Khabarovsk War Crime Trials]] the accused, such as Major General Kiyashi Kawashima, testified that, in 1941, some 40 members of Unit 731 air-dropped plague-contaminated fleas on [[Changde]]. These attacks caused epidemic plague outbreaks.<ref>Daniel Barenblatt, ''A Plague upon Humanity'', 2004, pages 220–221.</ref> In the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign, of the 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with the disease, about 1,700 Japanese troops died when the biological weapons rebounded on their own forces.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Implementation of Legally Binding Measures to Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention: Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Study Institute, Held in Budapest, Hungary, 2001|editor1-first=Marie Isabelle|editor1-last=Chevrier|editor2-first=Krzysztof|editor2-last=Chomiczewski|editor3-first=Henri|editor3-last=Garrigue|volume=150 of NATO science series: Mathematics, physics, and chemistry|edition=illustrated|year=2004|publisher=Springer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lILltXBTo8oC&pg=PA19|page=19|isbn=1-4020-2097-X|access-date=10 March 2014|archive-date=12 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221012014429/https://books.google.com/books?id=lILltXBTo8oC&pg=PA19|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Weapons of Mass Destruction|editor1-first=Eric A.|editor1-last=Croddy|editor2-first=James J.|editor2-last=Wirtz|others=Jeffrey A. Larsen, Managing Editor|year=2005|publisher=ABC-CLIO|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzlNgS70OHAC&pg=PA171|page=171|isbn=1-85109-490-3|access-date=10 March 2014|archive-date=12 October 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221012014931/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZzlNgS70OHAC&pg=PA171|url-status=live}}</ref> According to statistics from the Nationalist government, the Japanese army from July 1937 until September 1945 used poison gas 1,973 times. Based on available data, a total of 103,069 Chinese soldiers and civilians died from biological and chemical weapons.<ref>國史館檔案史料文物查詢系統，八年血債：七七事變前日寇對我之逼迫、日軍侵華戰爭中暴行（毒虐、屠害、炸擄、縱火）、我軍官兵傷亡及財產損失概況、領袖對日以德報怨、日背信忘義，典藏號：002-110500-00009-008 [https://ahonline.drnh.gov.tw/index.php?act=Display/image/5620671x=zm26c#eOs3]</ref>

Japan gave its own soldiers [[methamphetamines]] in the form of [[Philopon]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Morgans |first1=Julian |title=A Brief History of Meth |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/from-kamikaze-pilots-to-footy-players-heres-a-short-history-of-ice/ |work=VICE News |date=22 October 2015 |access-date=29 April 2020 |archive-date=6 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806162920/https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/4wb78m/from-kamikaze-pilots-to-footy-players-heres-a-short-history-of-ice |url-status=live }}</ref>