Chinese WWII forced laborers sue Japan's Kajima Corporation

Chinese laborers who were kidnapped and forced into slavery during World War II are filing a new lawsuit against major Japanese construction firm the Kajima Corporation amid strained relations between the two countries.

Lawyers representing one surviving Chinese laborer and 26 family members of four deceased laborers filed the lawsuit at the Third Intermediate People's Court in Beijing on Tuesday.

The victims' group demands a public apology from the Kajima Corporation be published in major Chinese and Japanese newspapers in two languages, and 1 million yuan ($150,000) in compensation for each forced laborer.

Guo Shusheng, 92, is the only surviving Chinese laborer involved in the case.

"We are still looking for other plaintiffs in central and northern China to add to the list. As time goes by, our search for surviving laborers becomes more difficult," Zou Qianglun, one of the lawyers for the victims' group, told the Global Times.

Ma Bao'en, 58, son of a deceased forced laborer Ma Haisheng, said his father insisted his children carry on with the lawsuit when he passed away.

"He wanted Kajima to admit to its crimes and apologize," Ma told the Global Times.

Kajima's wartime predecessor, Kajima-gumi, forced 1,888 Chinese laborers to work as slaves between May 1944 and May 1945, 539 of whom were tortured to death, according to a statement released by the lawyers.

The average death rate of laborers in Kajima-gumi's five work camps reached 28.5 percent and the death rate at its Hanoka camp in Odate, Japan's Akita Prefecture, where an uprising against cruel working conditions and torture took place in June, 1945, reached 42.4 percent, according to the statement.

In 1995 a Chinese victims' group led by then 81-year-old former laborer Geng Zhun sued Kajima.

In 2000, Kajima agreed to set up a 500 million yen ($4.3 million) fund to compensate the victims from its Hanoka labor camp. But some laborers, including Geng, who passed away in 2012, refused to accept the compensation, saying that Kajima failed to admit to its wartime atrocities.

"Plaintiffs of the previous case came from the Hanoka labor camp whereas the laborers in our case first worked in Kajima-gumi's Ontake camp and were later transferred to its Yabutsuka camp," Kang Jian, the lead attorney of the victims' group, told the Global Times.

Kang said that half of the Chinese laborers refused to accept money from Kajima's fund.

"We have made it very clear in our indictment that the victims demand Kajima Corporation to admit to its collusion with the imperial Japanese government in WWII in abducting and enslaving Chinese laborers and apologize," Kang said.