Chinese court detains Japanese boat over unpaid damages

Source:Global Times Published: 2014-4-21 1:43:01

A Shanghai court on Saturday ordered the detention of an ore carrier owned by the Japanese Mitsui Group at Majishan port in Shengsi, Zhejiang Province to enforce a compensation ruling for the loss of two Chinese freighters from the 1930s, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

The ship Baosteel Emotion from Mitsui OSK Lines, a branch company of Mitsui Group, was detained to compensate for the losses of the cargo ships Shun Feng and Xin Taiping, rented by Mitsui OSK from Chinese owner Chen Shuntong in 1930s.

Mitsui stopped paying rent for the two ships after 1937 when Japan declared war on China and never returned the two ships.

Chen's family kept seeking compensation after the war. The case was reopened in 1988 when Chen's grandsons filed suit at Shanghai Maritime Court.

The court in 2007 judged the two ships illegally occupied by the Japanese company after its suspension of rent payments in 1937 and ruled Mitsui Group pay 2.9 billion yen ($28.3 million) compensation.

It was the first time China has seized Japanese corporate property for postwar compensation, Tokyo Shimbun commented.

Alongside suing Japanese companies for exploiting Chinese laborers during World War II, the two legal approaches were "attacks" on Japan by China, the paper argued.

The seizure of Japanese property in this case set a dangerous precedent for future compensation suits, Japanese broadcaster NHK worried.

Kang Jian, a lawyer representing wartime Chinese laborers, told the Global Times that although this was a commercial case involving a foreign company, a Chinese judicial department has the legal right to enforce a compensation ruling.

Li Zongyuan, deputy director of Museum of War of Chinese People's Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, told the Global Times the case was merely an economic dispute between two enterprises and shouldn't be over-read politically.

Global Times



Posted in: Asia-Pacific

blog comments powered by Disqus