Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials is reported to have agreed to offer compensation, though meagre, and apology to forced Chinese laborers it used during World War II (WWII), in what appears to be a first positive step by a wrongdoing Japanese company to seek reconciliation with forced labor victims from China.
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(R-L) American World War II prisoner of war James Murphy shakes hands with Hikaru Kimura, Mitsubishi Materials Corp. senior executive, and Yukio Okamoto, Mitsubishi Materials Corp outside board member in Los Angeles.
Mitsubishi Materials will compensate 100,000 yuan (16,100 U.S. dollars) for each forced Chinese worker and their relatives. Many did not make it back to China, the Reuters report said.
It would be the first time that a Japanese firm has decided to apologise and pay monetary compensation to Chinese war victims, whose case had already been rejected by Japan’s Supreme Court.
Mitsubishi Mining Co., the firm’s predecessor, had 3,765 Chinese workers working in poor conditions.
Starting in the 1990s, Chinese survivors of forced labor and their families filed a series of compensation lawsuits against the Japanese government and companies.
However, Japan’s Supreme Court in 2007 ruled against granting wartime compensation to individuals, saying their rights to claims were relinquished after a 1972 Sino-Japanese declaration that normalised ties between the two countries.
The Chinese groups, which had hoped to restore the dignity of aging victims while they are alive, started negotiations with the Tokyo-based company in January 2014. There are now fewer than 20 living survivors.
Tong Zeng, the head of the group, said that an official statement aimed at demanding compensation from Japan will be published before August 15, the day marking Japan’s surrender to the Allies in 1945.
The three groups represent a large majority of the victims.
The news service said that Mitsubishi Materials and the group of Chinese plaintiffs reached an agreement to settle the forced labor case through the compensation and apology arrangement. One different Chinese group of 37 people filed a compensation lawsuit in February 2014 with a Beijing court against Mitsubishi Materials.
Until last year, Chinese authorities have largely prevented individuals from filing compensation suits against Japan out of concern it could hurt bilateral ties and discourage Japanese investment.
The planned apology to the Chinese citizens has yet to be confirmed by the company, but comes after its unprecedented apology on Sunday to US prisoners of war (POW) used as forced labor by the company.
In the statement, Mitsubishi Materials said about 39,000 Chinese labourers were forced to Japan due to a decision by the Japanese government.
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The company also notified the plaintiffs that it is willing to offer a “deep and honest apology and condolences”.
