Japan's first public corporate apology to its slave laborers

Former POW of Japan James Murphy who was a slave laborer in Mitsubishi Material's (MMC) Osarizawa Copper Mine in Sendai is sitting before this group of bowing MMC officials who had just delivered to him the company's apology for the inhumane treatment he received during World War II.

Among the officials bowing was MMC board member and fluent English-speaker Yukio Okamoto, a well-known Japanese foreign policy consultant. He has been involved behind the scenes in a number of important Japanese apology initiatives. These include the Kono Statement, the Asian Women's Fund, the 1995 Okinawa Rape incident, and Koizumi's 2005 War Anniversary statement. He is on the current prime minister's committee to help draft a statement to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

The apology was delivered in Japanese. Although the formal apology word shazai was not used and the POWs were described as being "forced to work" as opposed to "forced" or "slave" labor, the apology was accepted and appreciated. As Mr. Murphy said, "it was a glorious day."

Mitsubishi Material's ambiguous apology, constrained by an impenitent political climate, will be strengthened over time by the truth. The apology is a beginning and an opening. It will allow the POW history to be told and believed. The telling of this history will make it clear that it was Mitsubishi that purchased the men, that forced them to work in horrific conditions, and that allowed them to be beaten and maimed for the war effort. Mitsubishi was not merely a collaborator.

Here is the statement released in Los Angeles, California at the Museum of Tolerance by Mitsubishi Materials Corporation on July 19, 2015. We will post the Japanese as soon as we can obtain it.

Statement by Mitsubishi Materials Corporation 

Senior Executive Officer Hikaru Kimura in the Meeting With 

a Former American POW and Families of Former POWs

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, speaking on behalf of Mitsubishi Materials, thank you very much for this opportunity to meet with you today at the Museum of Tolerance.

Mitsubishi Mining Company Limited, the predecessor of Mitsubishi Materials, was engaged in coal and metal mining during World War II. As the war intensified, prisoners of war were placed in a wide range of industries to offset labor shortages. As part of this, close to 900 American POWs were allocated to four mines operated by Mitsubishi Mining in Japan.

I joined Mitsubishi Materials as a postwar baby-boomer and have worked in the company for 34 years. I have read the memoirs of Mr. James Murphy, who is present here at this ceremony, and those of other former POWs, as well as records of court trials. Through these accounts, I have learned about the terrible pain that POWs experienced in the mines of Mitsubishi Mining.

The POWs, many of whom were suffering from disease and injury, were subjected to hard labor, including during freezing winters, working without sufficient food, water, medical treatment or sanitation. When we think of their harsh lives in the mines, we cannot help feeling deep remorse.

I would like to express our deepest sense of ethical responsibility for the tragic experiences of all U.S. POWs, including Mr. James Murphy, who were forced to work under harsh conditions in the mines of the former Mitsubishi Mining.

On behalf of Mitsubishi Materials, I offer our sincerest apology.

I also extend our deepest condolence to their fellow U.S. POWs who worked alongside them but have since passed away.

To the bereaved families who are present at this ceremony, I also offer our most remorseful apology.

This cannot happen again, and of course, Mitsubishi Materials intends to never let this happen again.

We now have a clear corporate mission of working for the benefit of all people, all societies and indeed the entire globe. Respecting the basic human rights of all people is a core principle of Mitsubishi Materials, and we will continue to strongly adhere to this principle.

Our management team wishes for the health and happiness of our employees every day, and we ask that all of them work not only diligently, but also with a sense of ethics.

Mitsubishi Materials supplies general materials that enrich people’s lives, from cement to cellphone components and auto parts, all of which are closely related to people’s lives. We also place a strong emphasis on recycling for more sustainable societies, such as recovering valuable metals from used electrical appliances and other scrapped materials.

Here in the United States, we have plants for cement and ready-mixed concrete, and a sales headquarters for our advanced materials and tools business, all in California, as well as a polysilicon plant in Alabama. We believe that our company provides fulfilling jobs for local employees and contributes to host communities through its business.

The American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Museum in Wellsburg, West Virginia archives extensive records and memorabilia of POWs. These records and memorabilia will be handed down to future generations for educational purposes.

I will visit the museum the day after tomorrow to view the exhibits and visualize how POWs were forced to work under harsh conditions. For now, however, I am pleased to announce that Mitsubishi Materials has donated 50,000US dollars to the museum to support its activities.

Finally, I sincerely thank Ms. Kinue Tokudome and the members of the American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Memorial Society for creating this opportunity to meet with you today. I also express my sincere thanks to Rabbi Abraham Cooper for offering the Museum of Tolerance as a venue for the ceremony. And I express my deep gratitude to all others involved in arranging this gathering.

I would also like to thank the family members of a non-U.S. POW who have come from very far away to attend this ceremony.

I truly hope that this gathering marks the starting point of a new relationship between former POWs and Mitsubishi Materials.

Thank you very much.

Abe's history committee defuses responsbility

Commission impossible for Abe’s foreign policy

By Michael Cucek, Temple University Japan

Originally published in East Asia Forum, 3 March 2015


On 25 February, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened the first meeting of a new special advisory council, the Commission on a Framework for the 21st Century. The rather ambiguously and grandiosely named council is to meet with him over the coming months, presenting the results of their deliberations on five topics. The prime minister will presumably include the gist of the commission’s recommendations in his Prime Minister’s Statement to be delivered on August 15, the 70th anniversary of Japan’s acceptance of the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, the act ending the combat phase of World War II.

The first topic the commission will address is how Japan should view its and the world’s courses through the 20th century, and what lessons may be drawn from them. Second, what path has Japan trod in the 70 years since the end of World War II, and to what extent have Japan’s pacifism, economic development and contributions to the international community have been appreciated? Third, what path has Japan traveled in regards to reconciliation, first with the US, Australia and Europe but especially with China, South Korea and the rest of Asia? Fourth, what should Japan’s vision for relations in the 21st century be? Finally, what specific measures should Japan undertake 70 years into the post-war period.

The membership of the commission is top notch: 16 of the most influential and recognizable senior commentators and reporters on foreign policy, diplomacy and international image management. The council’s president Taizo Nishimuro is the eldest at 79. He is Chairman of Japan Post and former chairman of both Toshiba Corp and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. His presence provides the council with actual personal memory of the war and its end. Rumiko Seya, the director of the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention, is the youngest at 38. Most of the members of the commission are in their late 60s, meaning that while they have no direct experience of the war, their lives span both Japan’s rise to global economic power and its decades of struggle and relative decline since the collapse of the asset price bubble.

Some reports have incorrectly characterized the commission as composed mostly of academics. Though many of the members currently use academic titles, many are not university scholars. Professionally the commission’s membership is quite varied. Mitsubishi Corporation Chairman Yorihiko Kojima stands at the pinnacle of traditional Japan Inc. corporate culture [Company frequently sued for slave and forced labor claims during the war]. Globis Capital Partners president Yoshito Hori represents Japan’s young, entrepreneurial business class. Yukio Okamoto (for whom the author used to work) and Kunihiko Miyake are former career diplomats. Keiko Iizuka and Takao Yamada are senior journalists, hailing from two news organizations one of which is the most supportive (Yomiuri Shimbun) and the other the most critical (Mainichi Shimbun) of the Abe administration.

Politically, the council can be characterized as moderate-right in orientation. Terumasa Nakanishi of Kyoto University is the one hardliner on the commission. His presence is more than balanced though by the presence and authority of Nishimuro, who serves as the president of the New China-Japan Friendship Committee of the 21st Century. Nishimuro is one of the few members of the elite who have close relations with the leaders of China. Most of the membership of the council would be best called conservative, both in the sense of advocating for greater legalization of the SDF’s use of military force in line with international norms and in wanting those changes to be incremental and not disruptive to the peace in East Asia.

Nishimuro will be a formidable chairman. But the power to shape consensus within the commission will have to be shared with his deputy, Shinichi Kitaoka. Kitaoka, the president of the International University of Japan and the former Japan chair of the Japan–China History Research Committee is a long-time close Abe confidant. He served as deputy chairman of the Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, the council that gave the Abe administration the intellectual argument for the constitutionality of Japan engaging in limited collective self-defense operations. He will likely play a highly influential role on the commission.

Most of the members — with the exception of Nishimuro, Iizuka and Seya — have long been part of Prime Minister Abe’s network of advisers. Miyake, a fluent speaker of Arabic, Chinese and English, is often treated by the media as the prime minister’s private spokesman on security and international affairs.

That such talent is so close to the prime minister should be a cause for celebration. But it could well be wasted. Abe has managed in the past to consult with wise persons, weigh their advice and then go on to do what he wanted to do as if he had never talked to anyone at all — his 26 December 2013 visit to Yasukuni Shrine being the most glaring example of his stubborn self-direction.

Furthermore, the sheer mass of talent and attention being brought to bear upon the Prime Minister’s Statement on the 70th Anniversary is many orders of magnitude greater than what is necessary. If Abe wanted to please the US government and satisfy the governments of China and South Korea, all he would have to do is reissue the 1995 Statement of Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama on the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. That he has inaugurated a commission to supplement his own statement is evidence he does not intend to follow in the path to reconciliation mapped out by the Murayama Statement.

Unfortunately for Abe, the members of the commission and the citizenry of Japan, the Murayama Statement is the minimum standard expected by the governments of the US, China and South Korea. If, after the deployment of all the experience and knowledge of the commission, Abe fails to hit the expected notes and to transcend the Murayama Statement, the letdown felt by those governments, and the damage done to Japan’s international stature, will be all the greater.

The prudent course for Abe would have been to discourage the build-up of expectations for his statement, to work through the normal diplomatic and bureaucratic channels in its production and forget about the text immediately after reading it. As of 25 February, that humble, cautious path is closed.

Michael Cucek is an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University, Japan. He was formerly a senior research analyst at Okamoto Associates Inc, a consulting firm led by commission member Yukio Okamoto. He is an APP member