Yes, both countries had cases where they would experiment with prisoners. A web page I looked at last month (sorry couldn't find again) had a interview/confession from a doctor that talked about how they would use Chinese prsioners to give their surgeons practice. They would take a perfectly healthy, if neglected, prisoner and just start practicing different proceedures on them.

The Japanese also had a grizzly habit of using their prisoners as a sort of initiation device. Officers would sometimes be forced to behead someone with their samurai sword to prove their willingness to fight or get them over their squemishness. One officer who told his story even used a similar technique to initiate his NCOs. He had them bayonet prisoners. Their stories show the same total disregard for human life as long as it was one of the "inferior" peoples. It kind of reminds me of the way we decimated the native indian population here in the United States. There is such an ugly side to that kind of thinking. Societies really have to be careful to teach dignity for all so these kinds of things don't go on.

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL