South Koreans aid Chinese in Japan forced labor lawsuits

A group of South Koreans who participated in successful lawsuits against Japanese companies for the use of forced labor during wartime attended a seminar to support Chinese forced labor victims in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province on Wednesday, the first cooperation of this kind between the two countries.

Three South Koreans, including one lawyer and two relatives of forced laborers who were mobilized by the Japanese during World War II, shared their experience on how to win the lawsuit with a group of Chinese forced labor victims and families.

They also attended a memorial service with their Chinese counterparts earlier on Wednesday.

A total of 149 Chinese former laborers and their relatives filed a lawsuit at the High People's Court of Hebei province on Wednesday against Mitsubishi Materials Corp, Zhang Shiqian, the lawyer of the group, told the Global Times, noting that the province's intermediate people's court will decide whether to accept and hear the case.

The plaintiffs are seeking compensation of 227 million yuan ($37 million) from the company.

Last year, South Korean courts issued two separate rulings against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp to pay compensation to South Korean forced laborers, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

"Some tactics they used in the lawsuits are very useful to us and we found that the legal principals between the lawsuits in the two countries are connected and can be applied to each other," Zhang said.

He noted that the defendants often argue that the company that used forced labor in wartime no longer exists as after mergers and acquisitions, the company is effectively a different entity. The South Korean plaintiffs refuted this by proving that the current company inherited the majority of the wartime company's assets, and therefore should be held accountable for its predecessor's actions.

A court in Beijing on March 18 agreed to hear a case in which a group of Chinese victims of wartime forced labor are suing two Japanese firms for compensation, the first time such a case has officially entered the legal process in a Chinese court.

Media reports revealed that lawsuits against Japanese companies for forced laborers have been filed intensively in several provinces recently.

Deng Jianguo, a lawyer who represents more than 200 Chinese forced laborers and their relatives in Hebei province, told the Global Times that more lawsuits regarding forced labor will be filed, especially after Chinese courts start to accept the cases.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said in February that forced labor during Japan's militaristic aggression and colonization is a major unresolved historical issue, and Japan should seriously address the issue by adopting a responsible attitude toward history.

Sun Lique, an organizer of Wednesday's activities, invited the South Koreans.

Sun told the Global Times that they will organize more cooperative activities like this with South Koreans, noting that support from the South Koreans involved in the case would help exert more pressure on the Japanese companies.

"This kind of cooperation between Chinese and South Korean people should be encouraged to put pressure on Japan and prompt the Japanese government and society to stick to a peaceful development path," Geng Xin, an analyst based in Japan, told the Global Times.

He noted that Chinese people should collaborate with more foreign victims hurt during WWII to seek justice.

A member of the South Korean group told reporters that the Wednesday attendance of Korean victims heralded "a coordinated response by victims in Korea and China," Yonhap reported.

Geng noted that South Korea is good at winning support from the international community on historical issues, especially from the US.

"Pursuing the winning of the lawsuit is an important way to put pressure on Japan to realize their mistakes and stop whitewashing the war," Geng said, noting that the lawsuit is more about justice than compensation.