Published : 2025-03-06
On March 6, 1964, the last batch of Japanese war criminals detained in China were released.
This batch of Japanese war criminals consisted of three people: Mio Saito (齊藤美夫), Juntaro Tominaga (富永順太郎), and Hiroshi Jono (城野宏).
In January 1954, under the directives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China established the "Northeast Work Team," which was specifically responsible for the investigation and interrogation of all 1,109 Japanese war criminals in China.
On April 25, 1956, the 34th meeting of the Standing Committee of the First National People's Congress reviewed and passed the decision, which formally commenced the process of releasing Japanese war criminals by the Chinese government.
The first batch of 335 Japanese war criminals were released on June 21, 1956, all of whom were exempted from prosecution.
At that time, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that considering 10 years had passed since the end of World War II, there had been significant changes in the positions of China and Japan.
Meanwhile, the China-U.S. relations continued to deteriorate, and signs of a downturn appeared in Sino-Soviet relations.
Therefore, the policy of lenient handling was adopted to aid the normalisation of China-Japan relations and to facilitate the easing of the international situation.
