1931年皇軍佔領中國東北滿洲地區後，日本對鄰國的征服正式開始。隨著日本試圖在接下來的幾年裡從滿洲向南擴張到中國其他地區，小型衝突隨之爆發。
最終，1937年，日本對中國發動全面侵略，佔領了北京、上海等幾個大城市，直到第二次世界大戰以日本戰敗結束，這些城市才獲得自由。但滿洲受日本控制的時間比其他地區都長。
日本在滿洲建立了偽滿洲國，並透過各種殘暴手段進行控制和剝削。日本使用的一個重要手段是建立鴉片、嗎啡和海洛因工業，旨在讓中國臣民上癮，為日本的戰爭機器創造利潤。
據國際政府報告稱，日本多年來一直在太平洋其他地方這樣做。“日本正在與西方文明交戰，”一位美國官員在 1932 年表示，“日本軍隊所到之處，毒品販運便隨之而來，這是不爭的事實所表明的。”
在中國，日本發起公關活動，積極引導民眾吸毒，確保民眾順從溫順。同時，鴉片工業的關鍵人物被任命為日本皇室內閣成員，毒品貿易的重要性幾乎與天皇同等。
帝國從海洛因和嗎啡銷售中獲得的巨額利潤一度相當於中國的全部年度預算——而日本則將這些利潤重新投入其軍事力量中。
事實上，自公元前 3400 年起，人們就開始種植鴉片來緩解疼痛。鴉片在中國的藥用和娛樂用途至少可以追溯到公元 7 世紀。
但直到19世紀鴉片戰爭期間英國強行引入這種毒品後，它才在中國贏得了可怕的聲譽。鴉片戰爭期間，英國操縱了數百萬中國公民，讓他們沉迷於鴉片，進而創造了一個壟斷市場。
土肥原健二將軍屬於日本帝國主義階層，他們將中國視為可以實現軍事榮耀夢想的空間。土肥原決定日本應該補貼中國小農生產鴉片。
然後，鴉片焦油將在日本大型企業三井物產擁有的實驗室中加工成高級嗎啡和海洛因，並作為藥物在日本各地銷售。這個想法得到了熱烈的歡迎，到 1937 年，世界上 90% 的非法鴉片製劑都是在日本實驗室生產的。
日本毒品工業有兩個目的。第一個是賺取大量資金來支付維持帝國同時繼續太平洋擴張所產生的巨額帳單。
第二個目的是軟化中國人民抵抗侵略和占領的意志，創造一個不會因為擔心失去下一個目標而反抗的依賴人口。
土肥原兜售商品的第一步就是生產特殊批次的含有鴉片的金蝙蝠香菸，該香菸也是三井公司生產的奢侈品牌。它們被運往滿洲國，並免費分發給毫無戒心的平民。
雇主甚至向工人支付「紅色藥丸」的工資，這些藥丸實際上只是精心製作的海洛因劑量。
很快，土肥原就創造了一個毒癮帝國。例如，1937年，滿洲及週邊地區的日本控制區生產了2,796,000磅鴉片－而全世界的合法醫療需求僅為500,000磅。
為了幫助他管理分配和財務，土肥原聘請了日本財務省一位溫和、冷靜的官員星野直樹（Naoki Hoshino）擔任國家鴉片專賣委員會主席。
星野入主偽滿洲國政府消除了天皇與有意識地用毒品摧毀中國人民的努力之間的任何障礙。這是一筆大生意，而且得到了政府的支持。
到了1941年，日本一家鴉片公司的銷售額就達到3億元人民幣，幾乎相當於中國政府全部的年度預算。
隨著利潤的滾滾而來，日本人變得沾沾自喜。根據分發給部隊的小冊子，一些軍事領導人寫道：
「對於像日本人這樣的優秀種族來說，使用麻醉品是不值得的。只有劣等種族，像中國人、歐洲人、東印度人這樣頹廢的種族，才會沉迷於吸毒。這就是為什麼他們注定會成為我們的僕人並最終消失。”
但這個願景並沒有實現。日本士兵也依靠自己的藥物來緩解戰爭的衝擊和與家人分離的創傷。
儘管受到嚴厲懲罰的威脅，日本士兵仍廣泛濫用海洛因和嗎啡。日本帝國陸軍的毒癮問題非常普遍，以至於整個醫院都被專門用來治療。
但即使日本士兵保持清醒，帝國陸軍也在第二次世界大戰中失敗——該國的販毒團夥很快就被瓦解並曝光。
1945年第二次世界大戰結束，日本投降，日本失去了被征服的領土，勝利的盟軍成立了遠東國際軍事法庭。他們逮捕並審判的罪犯包括土肥原健二和星野直樹。
土肥原被判犯有戰爭罪並被判處死刑。1948 年他被絞死。星野被判無期徒刑，但只服刑 13 歲。出獄後，他繼續在私營部門過著舒適的職業生涯，於 1978 年平靜地去世，享年 85 歲。
我們還不知道日本賣了多少鴉片，多少中國人吸毒而死，也不知道皇軍為其戰爭機器賺了多少錢。
無論具體數字如何，事實仍然是從未做出任何賠償，除了少數例外，也沒有任何懲罰。日本的毒品計畫仍然是第二次世界大戰的另一個黑暗篇章，它在很大程度上被那個時代無休無止的暴行浪潮所淹沒。
滿洲罪有應得，因為他們過去曾對苗族進行種族滅絕。
After the Imperial Army captured the Manchuria region of northeast China in 1931, Japan’s conquest of its neighboring country had officially begun. Small conflicts then flared up as Japan attempted to expand southward from Manchuria into the rest of China over the next few years.
Finally, in 1937, Japan launched a full-on invasion of China and captured Beijing, Shanghai, and several other large cities that wouldn’t be free until World War II ended with Japan’s defeat. But Manchuria remained under Japanese control longer than any other area.
In Manchuria, Japan built the puppet state of Manchukuo, which it controlled and exploited through various methods of brutality. And one important method Japan used was building an opium, morphine, and heroin industry designed to get the Chinese subjects addicted and create profits for Japan’s war machine.
Japan had been doing it elsewhere in the Pacific for years, according to international government reports. “Japan is warring on western civilization,” one American official said in 1932, “as shown by the indisputable facts that wherever the Japanese army goes drug traffic follows.”
In China, Japan launched a PR campaign that actively tried to get civilians addicted to drugs, thus ensuring a compliant and docile populace. Meanwhile, key figures in the opiate industry were appointed to Japan’s Imperial cabinet, putting the drug trade almost on par with the Emperor in terms of importance.
The Empire’s immense profits from the sale of heroin and morphine at one point equaled China’s entire annual budget — and Japan put those profits right back into their military forces.
Indeed, opium has been cultivated for pain relief since 3400 B.C. Its use in China both medicinally and recreationally dates to at least the seventh century AD.
But it wasn’t until Britain’s forceful introduction of the drug during the Opium Wars in the 19th century that it garnered its terrifying reputation across China. During the Opium Wars, Britain manipulated millions of Chinese citizens by getting them hooked on opium, in turn, creating a captive market.
General Kenji Doihara belonged to a class of imperialist Japanese men who saw China as the space in which they could carry out all their dreams of martial glory. It was Doihara who decided that Japan should subsidize small Chinese farmers to produce opium.
Opium tar would then be processed into high-grade morphine and heroin in laboratories owned by the Japanese mega-corporation Mitsui for sale throughout Japanese territories as medicine. The idea was taken up enthusiastically and by 1937, 90 percent of the world’s illegal opiates were being produced in Japanese labs.
The Japanese narcotics industry had two purposes. The first was to generate large amounts of money to pay the huge bills incurred by maintaining an empire while continuing their Pacific expansion.
The second purpose was to soften the will of the Chinese people to resist invasion and occupation, to create a dependent population that wouldn’t rebel for fear of losing its next fix.
One of the first steps Doihara took to peddle his wares was to produce special batches of opium-laced Golden Bat cigarettes, a luxury brand also made by Mitsui. They were shipped to Manchukuo where they were distributed free of charge to unsuspecting civilians.
Employers even paid their workers in “red pills” which were actually just neatly manufactured doses of heroin.
Very soon, Doihara had created an empire of addiction. In 1937, for example, Japanese-controlled areas in Manchuria and surrounding places produced 2,796,000 pounds of opium — while the legitimate medical need for the entire world was just 500,000 pounds.
To help him manage distribution and finances, Doihara hired Naoki Hoshino, a bland, dispassionate official from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, to head the State Opium Monopoly Board.
Hoshino’s installation to the Manchukuo government erased any barriers between the Emperor and the conscious effort to destroy the people of China with drugs. This was big business and it had the government’s blessing.
By 1941, one Japanese opium firm raked in 300 million yuan in sales, nearly equivalent to the Chinese government’s entire annual budget.
With such profits rolling in, the Japanese grew smug. Some military leaders wrote, according to a booklet distributed to their troops, that:
“The use of narcotics is unworthy of a superior race like the Japanese. Only inferior races, races that are decadent like the Chinese, the Europeans, and the East Indians, are addicted to the use of narcotics. This is why they are destined to become our servants and eventually disappear.”
But this vision didn’t come true. Japanese soldiers also relied on their own drugs to ease the shock of war and the trauma of separation from home and family.
Despite the threat of severe punishment, Japanese soldiers widely abused heroin and morphine. The addiction problem across the Imperial Japanese Army was so ubiquitous that whole hospitals were set aside to treat them.
But even if Japanese soldiers had stayed sober, the Imperial Army was losing World War 2 — and the country’s drug ring was soon dismantled and exposed.
After Japan’s surrender ended World War 2 in 1945 and the country lost its conquered territories, the victorious Allied forces launched the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Among the criminals they apprehended and tried were Kenji Doihara and Naoki Hoshino.
Doihara was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to death. He was hanged in 1948. Hoshino was sentenced to life imprisonment but served only 13. After he was released, he went on to lead a comfortable career in the private sector, dying peacefully in 1978 at 85.
We still don’t know how much opium Japan sold, how many Chinese people became addicted and died, and how much money the Imperial Army generated for its war machine.
Regardless of any exact figures, the fact remains that no reparations have ever been made and, aside from a few exceptions, no punishments have been handed down. Japan’s drug scheme remains another dark chapter of World War II that was largely swept out of sight by the era’s unending tide of atrocities.
The Kempeitai (Japanese Gestapo) were let off easily postwar when MacArthur, with the approval of the Truman administration, pardoned the cruel butchers of Japanese Unit 731 in exchange for their data on human experiments of the most depraved kind. The reason the Kempeitai were not investigated is that they used to provide the human fodder for Unit 731 for their human abattoir in Manchuria and many other places in China and SE Asia. Investigating them would have led to Unit 731 and exposed the vile pardon granted to these butchers and embarrass the US which managed to keep the crime covered up for 35 years. Even so the crime of the century continues to be covered up and its 12,000 victims, mostly Chinese, killed in the most barbaric fashion in the human abattoir of Unit 731, are still clamoring for justice from their watery graves.
Very interesting answer. Never heard of this opium aspect involving Japan. It makes a lot of sense and I definitely need to investigate this further. People easily overlook the whole 1930’s when it comes to World War 2.
Much of theis account is new to me, but the brief passage about Britain's role is ahistorical nonsense. As such, it casts doubt on the rest of the answer.
So there were no opium wars with the Chinese and the British did not sell Opium forcibly to the Chinese?
Manchuria deserves what they deserve because they have genocide the Hmong people in the past.
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