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Rejected by All Plaintiffs: Failure of the Nishimatsu-Shinanogawa “Settlement” with Chinese Forced Laborers in Wartime Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Kang Jian  and
William Underwood
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Japanese lawyers and activists supporting compensation lawsuits for Chinese forced labor in wartime Japan once called Chinese attorney Kang Jian the “window.” The term acknowledged Kang's pivotal role in coordinating between plaintiffs typically located in the Chinese countryside and Japanese legal teams pressing claims on their behalf in a dozen courtrooms across Japan over the past decade.

However, the close cooperation between Kang and the Japanese Lawyers Group for Chinese War Victims’ Compensation Claims broke down in April 2010, at least temporarily, following the out-of-court compensation agreement by Nishimatsu Construction Co. with forced laborers from its Shinanogawa worksite in Niigata. Late in the process of hammering out the settlement fund worth 128 million yen (about $1.28 million), the five plaintiffs’ Japanese lawyers began negotiating with Nishimatsu on behalf of the larger group of Shinanogawa victims who had not participated in litigation. Flanked by Kang, these five plaintiffs rejected the Nishimatsu pact at a press conference in Beijing the day after it was finalized in Tokyo.

Type
Part 2: Topics of Historical Memory in Japan
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 11 , Special Issue S7: Course Reader No. 7. The Politics of Memory in Japan and East Asia , January 2013 , pp. 140 - 154
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2013

References

Endnotes

[1] This article is a revised version of my previous article entitled A “Settlement” Based on the Premise of the Right to Claim Being Waived - Comment on the Nishimatsu-Shinanogawa “Settlement” published in China Legal Daily and People's Daily OnlinePeopl on May 18, 2010.

[2] For the Nishimatsu-Shinanagawa Settlement Agreement refer to Appendix A for the Japanese version and Appendix B for the translated Chinese version as provided by the Japanese lawyers representing the Chinese victims.

[3] Refer to Appendix E - Statement issued by Canada ALPHA on March 25, 2010.

[4] Besides Han Yinglin, the other 4 forced labor plaintiffs all passed away during the course of the litigation. Their descendants who inherited their legal status as plaintiffs were formally recognized by the Japan courts.

[5] For Confirmation Items refer to Appendix C for the Japanese version and Appendix D for the translated Chinese version as provided by the Japanese lawyers representing the Chinese victims.

[6] For Prof. Guan Jianqiang's article refer to Appendix F.

[7] For the “Proposal on the Complete Resolution of the Issue of Abduction of the Chinese People to Japan for Forced Labor during Wartime” refer to Appendix G.