According to Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, Emperor Shōwa authorized by specific orders (rinsanmei) the use of chemical weapons against the Chinese.Dokugasusen Kankei Shiryō II, Kaisetsu, Jūgonen sensō gokuhi shiryōshū, Funi Shuppankan, 1997, pp.25–29. During the Battle of Wuhan, Prince Kan'in Kotohito transmitted the emperor's orders to use toxic gas 375 times, from August to October 1938,Yoshimi and Matsuno, ibid. p.28, "Japan's poison gas used against China," The Free Lance-Star, 6 Octobre 1984 despite the 1899 Hague Declaration IV, 2 - Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases,Laws of War: Declaration on the Use of Projectiles the Object of Which is the Diffusion of Asphyxiating or Deleterious Gases; July 29, 1899 Article 23 (a) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land, and Article 171 of the Versailles Peace Treaty. According to another memorandum discovered by the historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, Prince Naruhiko Higashikuni authorized the use of poison gas against the Chinese on 16 August 1938.Wakabayashi, Bob Tadashi (1991). "Emperor Hirohito on Localized Aggression in China ". Sino-Japanese Studies 4 (1), p.7. A resolution adopted by the League of Nations on 14 May condemned the use of toxic gas by the Imperial Japanese Army.Herbert Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, Perennial, 2001, p.739
