Apology, act of convenience for sake of alliance

Mitsubishi Materials Corp will apologize to former prisoners-of-war from the United States this weekend in Los Angeles for forcing them to work as slave laborers during World War II, said the Simon Wiesenthal Center which is hosting the closed-door event. This is the first time it has made such an apology. The Japanese Embassy in Washington has denied the Japanese government's involvement. Comments:

Using POWs as slavelaborers is a war crime that the Japanese government has been trying to portray as company labor dispute, not a government-directed act. As much as it hates to, Tokyo still has to admit the wartime crime for the sake of the US-Japan special alliance, which explains its reluctance to apologize to Chinese and Korean laborers.

Yu Xin, a senior fellow of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies affiliated to Renmin University of China, July 15