Tuesday 28 July 2015
Japanese firm poised to apologise and pay compensation to Chinese wartime labourers
Japanese firm Mitsubishi Materials has decided to apologise and pay compensation of 100,000 yuan each to Chinese wartime labourers and their families, sources with direct knowledge of their negotiations said Thursday.
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Japanese firm poised to apologise and pay compensation to Chinese wartime labourers
Kyodo in Tokyo
24 July 2015
Japanese firm Mitsubishi Materials has decided to apologise and pay compensation of 100,000 yuan each to Chinese wartime labourers and their families, sources with direct knowledge of their negotiations said Thursday.
Mitsubishi Materials is prepared to offer the money to 3,765 Chinese or their families, the largest number of people to be subject to a Japanese company’s postwar compensation. Fewer than 20 Chinese who were forced labourers for the firm in the second world war are known to still be alive, so it will mostly be family members who receive the payouts.
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.
A negotiation team representing Chinese groups and Mitsubishi Materials are preparing to sign a historic reconciliation agreement in the near future in Beijing, the sources said, as this year marks the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Mitsubishi Materials has admitted that its predecessor, Mitsubishi Mining Co, and subcontractors used 3,765 Chinese people as forced laborers and infringed their human rights, according to the sources.
The victims were part of about 39,000 Chinese people who were brought to Japan against their will between 1943 and 1945, in line with a Japanese government decision to use forced labourers in coalmines and construction sites.
Some 6,830 of them died as a result of their treatment and privations.
Starting in the 1990s, Chinese survivors of forced labour and their families filed a series of compensation lawsuits against the Japanese government and companies.
But Japan’s Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that Chinese individuals have no judicial right to demand wartime compensation as it had already been renounced under a 1972 joint communique issued when Sino-Japanese diplomatic ties were normalised.
Nevertheless, Mitsubishi Materials will express “deep remorse” and “sincere apologies,” the sources said, adding that it will pay 100 million yen for the construction of a monument and 200 million yen for the search for missing victims and their bereaved families.
Of the 3,765, only about 1,500 Chinese survivors of forced labor or their families have been found so far.
The Chinese groups, which had hoped to restore the dignity of ageing victims while they are alive, started negotiations with the Tokyo-based company in January 2014. There are now fewer than 20 living survivors.
Mitsubishi Materials will come to terms with three Chinese groups that have sought compensation from it. Both sides recognise that the signing of the agreement will be a final settlement of the issue, the sources said.
The three groups represent a large majority of the victims. One different Chinese group of 37 people filed a compensation lawsuit in February 2014 with a Beijing court against Mitsubishi Materials.
That group took its legal action after South Korean courts ordered several Japanese firms in 2013 to pay damages over wartime forced labor, even though Tokyo and Seoul agreed in 1965 when normalising bilateral ties that all compensation issues had been settled.
It also took place at a time when the Chinese government was stepping up its campaign at home and abroad to warn of Japan’s resurgent militarism, after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit in late 2013 to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, where convicted war criminals are enshrined among the country’s war dead.
Earlier this year, the group of 37 broke off its out-of-court settlement negotiations with the Japanese company.
If the Chinese court decides to begin a trial, it will be the first case in China seeking compensation for victims of forced labour involving a Japanese company.
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.
On Sunday, Mitsubishi Materials apologised to US citizens who were used as forced labour during the war in mines operated by its predecessor.
Chinese official media gave widespread coverage to the apologies , with some suggesting the Japanese government and companies should also be more sincere to people in Asian countries who suffered under Japan’s past militarism.
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