Mitsubishi Apologizes to Wartime American and Chinese Forced Laborers

Corporate and business interests impact countries’ willingness to engage in reconciliation with their former enemies, as Dr. Martina Timmermann discusses in her 2014 Policy Report.  Recently, Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corp. issued public apologies for the use of forced labor during the Second World War by its predecessor, Mitsubishi Mining . Last month, the company’s representative made a public apology for using captured American soldiers as slave laborers. It was closely followed by the news that Mitsubishi is prepared to offer compensation to forced workers from China working for Mitsubishi Mining and its subcontractors during the war. The apologies came on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in the Pacific.

Read more about the apologies in these articles:

Mitsubishi Materials apologizes for using US prisoners of war as slave labor
Mitsubishi Materials apologizes for U.S. POW forced labor
Mitsubishi Materials set to settle 3,765 Chinese wartime labor redress claims