BEIJING - Japanese troops tortured Chinese people brutally during the war of aggression to China, according to World War II officer Shozo Tsukutani's written confession published on Tuesday.

According to the original document, available on the State Archives Administration (SAA) website, Tsukutani served as a secrete police officer in Manchukuo, the puppet state established by Japan in northeast China.

In April, 1936, his office arrested 78 Chinese people, "interrogated them with most brutal acts such as bloating water into their body, beating and clamping their fingers together with iron bars in between," according to the confession.

Four of the arrested were sentenced to death, Tsukutani said in the confession.

After June, 1939, he ordered the subordinates "to destroy 500 households (with 500 residents) and construct 10 tribal groups," according to the document.

This is the latest 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 right-wing politicians.