Japanese firm poised to apologise and pay compensation to Chinese wartime labourers

3-MIN READ3-MIN

American ex-prisoner of war James Murphy (second right) shakes hand with Mitsubishi Materials executives Hikaru Kimura (second left) and Yukio Okamoto (L), after accepting their apology for wartime abuse of US POWs. The apology, facilitated by Rabbi Abraham Cooper (right) at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles on Sunday, drew widespread attention in China. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:15am, 24 Jul 2015Updated: 12:34pm, 24 Jul 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.

The move comes after the company apologised to US citizens who were used as forced labour during the war.

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 the second world war.

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.