Hong Kong activists demand compensation from Japan on 70th anniversary of end to war

About 20 members of the Hong Kong Reparation Association demanded Japan reflect on its war crimes in China at a rain-soaked protest in Central this morning – as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepared to make a statement today marking the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war. 

Waving small yellow flags that read “Japan is rogue; Hongkongers are still angry”, the protesters, mostly elderly people in their 60s, marched from the General Post Office in Central to the Japanese consulate in Exchange Square.

After presenting their petition to a representative of the consulate, the marchers – who demand compensation from Japan and Japanese companies for their roles in the war – passed by the Cenotaph and continued to the office of the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ in AIA Tower. Five representatives of the association then held a closed-door meeting with the bank that lasted half an hour.

Chairman of the Reparation Association, Lau Man, said: “Mitsubishi has already agreed to compensate its forced labourers in China. But the Japanese government and Mitsubishi still haven’t compensated the bearers of military notes issued in Hong Kong during the war. They just left and now the notes are worthless paper. We feel discriminated against and we won’t forget this part of history. We will continue our fight for reasonable compensation.”

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During the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, the public was forced to surrender their Hong Kong dollars in exchange for military notes issued by the Japanese government. The Reparation Association estimated there are still 500 million military yen left in Hong Kong, unrecognised by Tokyo after the war ended in 1945.