Japan v. China (cont’d): Japanese High Court Rejects Chinese Compensation Lawsuit

In a piece of terrible timing, the Tokyo High Court has denied the appeal of a group of 10 Chinese plaintiffs seeking compensation for Japanese WWII atrocities. This decision comes just as the Japanese Foreign Minister left China without having resolved rising tensions and as the stocks of Japanese companies doing business in China plummet. Although I can’t get access to the case (and can’t read Japanese anyway), reports suggest the Tokyo High Court held that China may have waived the rights of its nationals to seek damages in domestic courts through its peace treaty with Japan. If this is the correct reading of the Sino-Japanese Peace treaties, then the Chinese protestors might also direct a little bit of their anger toward their own government, which may have been complicit in letting the Japanese off the hook, and which is now cynically manipulating their anti-Japanese sentiment for their own purposes.