BEIJING, July 24  -- The confession of Okabe Miyake, a Japanese war criminal, detailing his involvement in plague germ experiments and murder of Chinese people during Japan's war of aggression against China was published on Thursday.

The confession is the latest in a series published on the website of China's State Archives Administration (SAA).

According to his written confession, Okabe Miyake, born in 1902, was appointed section chief of the police department in Rehe Province in "Manchukuo" and director of the puppet Mukden Police Department.

In November 1938, an epidemic prevention headquarters meeting was held, at which it was decided the puppet police force should surround a plague outbreak area and cut the seat of Nongan County off from the outside world, he said in the confession.

The purpose of the order was to take advantage of the plague situation in Xinjing in order to conduct research and experiments to prepare for germ warfare, it said.

Okabe Miyake also confessed that he ordered puppet police forces to assist in "wiping out" the 1st Route Army of the Anti-Japanese United Army, shooting dead about 20 soldiers and detaining about 1,500.

According to the confession, he ordered to arrest 13,180 Chinese people and transfer 4,565 of them to the puppet procuratorate, with 14 sentenced to death and later slaughtered in prison.

This is the 23rd confession of a total of 45 Japanese war criminal confessions the SAA plans to publish. The SAA has been issuing one a day since July 3.

The move follows denials of war crimes by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Japanese right-wing politicians.