Screenshot of an obituary issued by Tong Zeng Working Studio on October 25, 2025

Tong Zeng, chairman of Zhongxiang Investment Co, and also known as “China’s first civil advocate demanding wartime compensation from Japan,” passed away in Beijing on October 23 at the age of 69 due to illness after medical treatment failed, according to an obituary issued by the Tong Zeng Working Studio on Saturday.

According to the obituary, Tong was a former associate researcher at the China Research Center on Aging; former director of China Soong Ching Ling Foundation; president of the Chinese Federation for Defending the Diaoyu Islands; and president of the China Federation of Civil Claims against Japan.

Tong was born in Southwest China’s Chongqing on June 3, 1956. Tong graduated from the School of Economics at Sichuan University in 1982 and later earned a master’s degree in law from Peking University, said the obituary.

In 1990, Tong published an article urging compensation for Chinese WWII victims, in which Tong for the first time made distinguish between “war reparations” and “civilian compensation,” and pioneeringly argued that “Chinese civilian victims have the right to seek compensation from the Japanese government and companies,” thus laying the legal foundation for Chinese civil compensation claim against Japan, according to the obituary.

Tong launched the movement of Chinese civil compensation claim against Japan and has tirelessly worked to expose the war crimes committed by Japanese invasion forces in China, helping Chinese civilian victims and their families  compensation from the Japanese government and Japanese perpetrator companies and defend their legal rights, according to an article published by Chang’anjie Zhishi, a social media account run by the official newspaper Beijing Daily on Sunday.

According to a 2018 China News Service (CNS) report, since 1994 Tong Zeng had lived up to the expectations of many WWII victims by actively seeking justice on their behalf. He commissioned Japanese lawyers and, in cooperation with relevant figures from both China and Japan, helped launch numerous lawsuits in Japan against the Japanese government and culpable corporations. Tong recommended many victims to Japanese legal teams, with lawsuits covering atrocities such as massacres, indiscriminate bombings, forced labor, and the comfort women system. Multiple suits were filed on behalf of Chinese forced laborers alone, including five separate cases against Mitsubishi Materials Corporation, the CNS report noted.

Regrettably, since 1994, nearly 30 lawsuits filed by Chinese civilians in Japan seeking compensation have, without exception, failed to secure fair rulings, according to the CNS report.

Global Times