In a statement publicized on the website of the Supreme People's Court, it has been said that the controversial seizure of the Japanese vessel "Baosteel Emotion" has came to an end after its owner had settled its debt from a Chinese company. Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd reportedly paid 2.9 billion yen or $28 million as judgement to get back its impounded 226,434-ton ship. The Tokyo-based company also paid 2.4 million yuan or $384,585 in court fees, the microblog of thhe Chinese court said.
Bloomberg said that the point of consternation was not the loss of the two leased vessels of a Chinese company before the two countries went to war in 1937, but is actually the ongoing territorial dispute over an island chain and the visits made by Japanese politicians to a shrine that honored the casualties of World War II.
Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law Jacques deLisle at the University of Pennsylvania said, "It's possible that similar action could be taken against other Japanese firms, but it's going to be devilishly hard to find plausible WWII-era cases. There would be, in my view, quickly diminishing and negative returns to China if we were to see a wave of asset seizures."
Bloomberg said that the dispute over the lost vessels started in 1936, when Mitsui OSK's predecessor, Daido Kaiun, had chartered two vessels from Chung Wei Steamship Co. According to Mitsui OSK in a statement released earlier this week, the vessels were later appropriated by the Japanese government and were later lost at sea during the war. The heir of the president of Chung Wei subsequently sued in 1964, but had lost. The heir had tried again in 1970, and then later took the case in the late 1980s to China. Mitsui OSK said that the ship was impounded without warning following the company's wishes to settle the case out of court following the maritime court ruling in favor of the plaintiff.
The strained ties of the two countries has somewhat echoed on legal cases stemming from the said war. The news agency pointed out that last month, a Chinese judge approved the proceeding of a lawsuit against Mitsubishi Materials Corp. The plaintiff of the lawsuit has argued that the Japanese company had used forced labor during WWII. At a briefing today, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga dissuaded China to separate the issue of the seized Japanese ship from Chinese compensation. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang, in response to the release of the seized Mitsui OSK ship, said today that the natter was resolved in accordance with the law.
