Crazy China: Seizes Japanese Ship For Pre-War Debts

It is starting to look like the Chinese government is crazy.

Japan Today reported:

TOKYO —The Japanese government on Monday warned that the seizure of a Japanese ship in Shanghai over pre-wartime debts threatened ties with China and could undermine the basis of their post-war diplomatic relationship. 

Authorities in Shanghai seized the large freight vessel in a dispute over what the Chinese side says is unpaid bills relating to the 1930s, when Japan occupied swathes of China. 

The move is the latest to illustrate the bitter enmity at the heart of Tokyo-Beijing ties, with the two sides embroiled in a spat over the ownership of a small archipelago and snapping at each other over differing interpretations of history. 

Shanghai Maritime Court said Saturday it had seized “the vessel Baosteel Emotion owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines… for enforcement of an effective judgement” made in December 2007.

Wondering what this is all about? The article goes on to state:

Reports said in 1936, Mitsui’s predecessor, Daido Shipping Co. rented two ships on a one-year contract from Zhongwei Shipping Co. 

However, the ships were commandeered by the Imperial Japanese Navy and were sunk during World War II, reports said. 

A compensation suit was brought against Mitsui by the descendants of the founder of Zhongwei Shipping Co, and in 2007, a Shanghai court ordered Mitsui to pay about 2.9 billion yen in compensation. 

Mitsui appealed against the court’s decision, but in December 2010, the Supreme People’s Court turned down their petition for the case to be retried. 

Mitsui has argued that it is not liable for paying compensation given that the ships that Daido rented were requisitioned by the Japanese military during the war, Kyodo News said. 

On Monday, Japan’s chief government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga said the seizure undermined the 1972 joint communique that normalised ties between Japan and China, in which Beijing agreed to renounce “its demand for war reparation from Japan.”

This is like someone here suing Japan (such as descendants of the owner of the pier that was damaged by Japanese submarine shelling in 1942 near Santa Barbara, California) for compensation for wartime damages today. We have courts crazy enough to allow such a lawsuit go forward.

Suga makes a good point that China agreed to renounce any demands for war reparations from Japan in 1972. Nice of them to live up to their agreements, eh?

This is total stupidity on China's part. It looks like they are trying to bully Japan, by using any means, over the Senkaku Islands dispute. They just may lose a valuable trading partner in the process.

But this should come as no surprise. People forget that China still has a communist government, which, by the way, controls the Chinese judicial system.

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