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Assessing the Nishimatsu Corporate Approach to Redressing Chinese Forced Labor in Wartime Japan
[I]n October 2009…Nishimatsu Construction…voluntarily agree[d] to compensate Chinese victims of wartime forced labor in Japan after resisting the redress claim for more than a decade…Nishimatsu…set up a trust fund of 250 million yen, or $2.5 million…to compensate the 360 Chinese men who were forcibly taken to Hiroshima Prefecture in 1944 to build a hydroelectric power plant at Nishimatsu’s Yasuno worksite - or their families...Nishimatsu apologized as well…[T]he Nishimatsu settlement has important implications for the 20 or so other still-operating Japanese firms that likewise badly mistreated Chinese workers in Japan, profited from their uncompensated forced labor, and now enjoy legal immunity as a result of [a] Japan Supreme Court ruling…Mitsubishi…which earlier…aggressively defended itself …has expressed willingness to settle claims stemming from Chinese forced labor [also refers to Aso Mining, Mitsui, Kajima, Nihon Yakin]