As the world prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Japan’s Mitsubishi corporation has made landmark apologies to both American and Chinese victims of conscription labour.
Thousands of Chinese nationals forced to work for the company during Japan’s invasion of China (1937-1945) have accepted an offer of an apology and reparations ahead of the historic date—albeit reluctantly.
At a press conference in Beijing on Monday, three organisations representing China’s WWII labourers announced they were “dissatisfied” with the settlement amount, but said they were willing to accept the sum “considering victims’ advanced age and the need to reach an agreement while they still have years of life ahead of them.”
Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group, will be offering RMB100,000 (HKD125,000) to 3,765 survivors of conscripted labour in China.
Among this number, only about 1,500 and their families have been found and fewer than 20 are still alive today. Mitsubishi Materials has said it will dedicate JPY200 million (HKD12.5 million) towards searching for the missing victims and their families.
Mitsubishi Materials has agreed to issue a formal apology and pay the agreed-upon sum before August 15, the day Japan’s Emperor surrendered to the Allies in 1945.
US apology.
On July 19, Mitsubishi Materials issued a landmark apology to US prisoners of war used as forced labour during WWII, becoming the first major company to apologise for the practice.
At a solemn Los Angeles ceremony, a senior Mitsubishi executive personally apologised to 94-year-old James Murphy, one of 12,000 American POWS forced to work in Japan. Murphy called the apology “very sincere, humble and revealing” and said it brought “closure and relief” to victims and their families.
Days after the apology, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency ran a commentary slamming the “selective” apology. “[I]nstead of US POWs,” it said Japan should “offer a sincere apology to those who most want it.”
The Japanese government officially maintains that the issue of reparations was settled by the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, in which compensation was allocated to Allied civilians and former POWs who had suffered Japanese war crimes.
The Japanese Supreme Court rejected compensation claims by Chinese wartime victims in 2007, saying their right to seek compensation was renounced in a 1972 Sino-Japanese joint statement which normalised the two countries’ diplomatic ties.
