| Three Alls Policy | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War | |
| Location | North China: Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Chahar |
| Date | Late 1941 - 1942 |
Attack type | Mass murder, looting, arson, wartime rape, state terrorism, collective punishment |
| Victims | At least 2.7 million civilians murdered |
| Perpetrators | Imperial Japanese Army
|
The Three Alls policy (Japanese: 三光作戦, Hepburn: Sankō Sakusen, (Chinese: 三光政策; pinyin: Sānguāng Zhèngcè) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three "alls" being "kill all, burn all, loot all".[1] This policy was designed as retaliation against the Chinese for the Communist-led Hundred Regiments Offensive in December 1940.[2]
The Chinese expression "Three Alls" was first popularized in Japan in 1957 when former Japanese soldiers released from the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre wrote a book called "The Three Alls: Japanese Confessions of War Crimes in China" (三光、日本人の中国における戦争犯罪の告白, Sankō, Nihonjin no Chūgoku ni okeru sensō hanzai no kokuhaku) (new edition: Kanki Haruo, 1979) in which Japanese veterans confessed to war crimes committed under the leadership of General Yasuji Okamura. The publishers were forced to stop the publication of the book after they had received death threats from Japanese militarists and ultranationalists.[3]