Japan cautions Chinese Malaysians not to expect too much

Japan Policy & Politics, Jan 14, 2002

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 10 Kyodo

A senior Japanese government official urged Chinese-Malaysian groups Thursday not to have high hopes that their demands for repayment of tribute money extorted from their community during the Second World War, would be met.

''If you expect a positive response that will satisfy you 100%, then maybe, I should not give some unfounded expectation because Japan's position from the legal point of view is the same. I am sorry to say these words,'' Keiji Ide, the Foreign Ministry's director of Regional Policy Division, said.

The Chinese group led by the Federation of Chinese Associations (FCA), an influential body representing Malaysia's several thousand Chinese guilds and associations, had earlier submitted to Ide documents supporting their claims for repayment.

They also included a note to protest against Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and the revised history textbook that they said whitewashed the atrocities committed by the Japanese army during World War II.

Ide was part of a delegation accompanying Koizumi in his whirlwind tour of Southeast Asia, which included an overnight stop at Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Ide stressed that the Japanese government believes it already settled all matters regarding wartime compensation with the Malaysian government in a 1967 treaty.

But FCA Secretary Frankie Wong said the Japanese government has not settled the matter with the Chinese community.

They want the Japanese government to pay back the Chinese community 500 million ringgit ($131.6 million.)

The figure is the federation's estimate of the present day equivalent of 50 million Straits dollars in 1942, the total amount paid to the Japanese Military Administration by the Chinese community in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore during the war.

The administration had demanded the Chinese community to pay ''tribute money'' in exchange for the lives and property of the Chinese and ''to atone'' for the Chinese role in prewar anti-Japanese activities.

To mobilize the collection process, the Japanese set up the Overseas Chinese Association.

Wong said the groups have been submitting the memorandum to the Japanese government every year since 1995, but ''(the Japanese) choose to ignore it.''

FCA Chief Executive Secretary Lai Kuan Fook said the group does not expect full repayment but at least the Japanese government should initiate a dialogue with the community.

''We hope the new prime minister will start a new leaf, a new chapter in our relationship,'' he said.

Ide assured them that Koizumi placed great importance on their concerns.

''He emphasizes the importance of heart-to-heart understanding. If there is a concern, we should face it straight forward,'' Ide said.

He also claimed Koizumi's shrine visit in August was ''to pay tribute to those who had perished and not to justify Japan's invasion of its Asian neighbors.''

And he attempted to clarify that the Japanese government was not involved in the publication of the controversial textbook.

''It doesn't mean that the Japanese government agrees 100% on the views taken by the textbook,'' he said.