Yet another case brought against Japan for atrocities before and during World War II has ended with a Tokyo court's rejection of the lawsuit. For the 180 Chinese plaintiffs - like the hundreds of war veterans, forced labourers and sex slaves before them - it marks the start of an arduous appeals process.
No foreigner has won compensation from a Japanese court for wartime aggression. Even 57 years after the war ended with Japan's surrender, the government has not made a formal apology to fellow Asians.
The brutality of the crimes committed are attested to by generations of the region's people. From massacres in China and Korea during pre-war occupation to rapes, torture and executions during the war-time invasion of its neighbours, the catalogue of horrors is slow to fade in Asian memories.
The plaintiffs in yesterday's case said that their forebears had been killed in germ warfare attacks. In a landmark move, the court went where the Japanese government has not dared venture and accepted that the military had used biological weapons during the war.
Through testimony from aged Japanese soldiers, their actions heavy on their conscience, the case revealed the details of Unit 731, which conducted experiments on Chinese captives near the city of Harbin. The efforts to produce such diseases as cholera and bubonic plague as weapons of war killed an estimated 3,000 people.
There is ample evidence of this and similar atrocities carried out by the military. Since the 1980s, an increasing number of Asians have been coming forward, taking their claims to Japanese courts. They have been backed by a growing number of Japanese, who believe their government should at the least apologise for its wartime excesses. Although initially characterised as left-leaning and even Marxist, these sympathisers have steadily moved into the mainstream.
