New | Chinese workers forced into wartime labour sue Japan firms for damages

A Beijing court accepted a lawsuit on Wednesday demanding compensation for Chinese citizens made to work by the Japanese as forced labourers during the second world war, state media reported.

The 37 people who have lodged the suit include lawyers and academics as well as forced labourers and their families, according to Chinese media reports.

Chinese state television said the lawsuit seeks printed apologies carried in Chinese and Japanese newspapers as well as compensation from Mitsubishi Materials and another unidentified company.

“As there is no way to get justice in Japan, the Chinese victims of forced labour and their families are determined to sue in China the Japanese companies which did them harm,” Zhang Shan, a member of the class-action suit, told the official China News Service.

Dozens of wartime compensation suits have been filed previously in Japan against the Japanese government and companies associated with its aggression in the first half of the 20th century, including the second world war.

Almost all have been rejected by Japanese courts.

A Mitsubishi Materials spokesman said the company was unable to comment because it did not know the details of the latest case.

Chinese courts come under the control of the ruling Communist Party and the suit is almost certain to be won by the plaintiffs, although it is highly unlikely that the ruling could be enforced outside of China.