Submitted By: Lindsay Yoshitomi

New York Times Article Summary: [Subscription to The New York Times required to read full article]

More than half a century later, Chinese men who were forced to work in Japan’s coal mines during World War II are pursuing lawsuits against the Japanese government. Many were tricked into working for the mines through false advertising, while others were abducted by Japanese soldiers. Last November, many of the laborers and their families went to Japan to recover unpaid wartime wages and compensation, neither of which has ever been offered by the Japanese government.

“The Japanese government bears responsibility for our suffering, and so do companies,” said Tang Kunyuan, a former enslaved laborer of Mitsubishi Mining which is today known as Mitsubishi Materials, a leader in metal and ceramic materials for the electronic industry. “First we want an apology, then compensation.”

Evidence of forced labor during the war has now prompted hundreds of Chinese to file lawsuits against the Japanese government and the successors of the mining companies. Japanese government data has revealed that because of labor shortages during the war, almost 40,000 Chinese men were forcibly brought to Japan to work for 35 companies, 22 which continue to do business. Three suits have successfully reached the Supreme Court, but the results have been more in favor of the defendants who received eight rulings, while the plaintiffs won four. The Japanese government and companies involved are standing behind the 20-year statute of limitations, claiming that the right to sue has expired, or that treaties between the two countries following the war has invalidated such claims. This attitude goes against international trends in recent years to ignore legalities and instead, compensate for wages involving forced labor. Mitsubishi Materials has even gone as far as to deny its involvement of forced labor.

In contrast to Japan, Germany and Austria have apologized and compensated its victims of slave labor by paying $5 billion and $350 million respectively to hundreds of thousands of individuals. Japan and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, however, continue to promote the minimization of its military past in textbooks, thus strengthening the mood against offering reparations. Mitsubishi’s lawyers concur with Abe’s sentiments, stating that ruling in favor of the Chinese would “impose a wrong burden of the soul on future generations of our nation, possibly for the next hundred years.”

After the war, the majority of Chinese laborers were sent home without pay, while some received I.O.U.’s from defunct banks. Today, millions of dollars of unpaid wages continue to be held by the Bank of Japan and government agencies. Chinese business leaders have established a fund totaling $315,000 in contributions to help plaintiffs pursue lawsuits, an effort supported by the Chinese government. Chinese lawyers are beginning to pressure Chinese branches of Japanese businesses, many of which are reaping the benefits of China’s booming economy.

***

Having great grandparents and grandparents of Japanese decent who were interned in American prison camps for 3 years during World War II, I can sympathize with the Chinese laborers who were ironically enslaved by Japan. My fraternal great grandparents and grandparents, after being given 10 days notice to relocate to the internment camps, lost their dry cleaning business, their home and belongings. When they were released, they were given $50 and their freedom, a right that was worth nothing to our government. A $20,000 reparation was awarded to living individuals almost a half century later along with an apology for the unjust treatment of American citizens. Unfortunately for some, it was too little, too late. For others, it was the beginning of a healing process, though late. Discussions regarding wartime reparations have always gone two ways. There are those who say, it was war; there are always victims and atrocities….we did what we thought was best for white America. Others say, for humanity sake, we must make amends for cruel injustices and our mistakes in judgment. Right now for the Chinese who have access to wartime evidence of enforced labor, I can understand their need to close that chapter of their past.

Questions:

Recognizing that Germany, Austria and the U.S. have made compensations to victims of World War II:

1) What do you think about Japan’s hardened position against making reparations to former enslaved mine workers?
2) With China emerging as a powerhouse in the global economy, how do you think this will affect the Japanese companies that having growing operations there?
3) Do you think this issue will have any effect on the rivalry between China and Japan, and their quest for leadership in Asia?

Several months ago I made a post on the controversial topic of whether schools in California, with their limited resources, should be focusing more on Mandarin and less on Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, etc. Click here to read that post.

Last week the always oustanding China Law blog made a related post concerning a similar language dispute in Oregon that also generated some great discussion (click HERE to view; over 60 comments the last time I checked). Apparently a fellow had written a letter to the Oregon legislature encouraging more Mandarin in schools.

The CLB’s post got me thinking about the following two questions:

• When the people of a society learn another society’s language (e.g., American’s learning Mandarin) does that lead to greater economic integration between the two countries/societies?
• Does greater economic integration lead to a lower likelihood of those two countries/societies going to war?

As you will see from the CLB comments, answers to these hypotheses/questions are all over the place, and at times the discussion was heated. Great stuff and debate! I love it!

To try and reach more resolution on this topic and find out what the research actually did/did not support, I emailed a colleague, Tim Fort, formerly of the University of Michigan and now at George Washington University. Tim is a pre-eminent scholar in the field of ethics and corporate governance, and he has written great stuff about peace through commerce (see, e.g., his books The Role of Business in Fostering Peaceful Societies, Cambridge University Press 2004 and Ethics and Corporate Governance: Business As a Mediating Institution, Oxford University Press 2001). Tim’s work should be required reading for all the business haters out there and people who are convinced that business and multinationals are Satan’s children. His books highlights that, indeed, business can be a noble profession and here is where I am coming from when I make that statement — my own view and bias is that business people who help create quality goods and services that help make the average Joe’s life better are just as heroic as the poet, fireman, garbage man, peace activist, non-profit worker, teacher, etc. I really do believe this. Many folks out there just do not fully appreciate how difficult it is to be a successful entreprenuer and business person. So there is no need to feel guilty for being in business or a business student — when you go about creating and doing your business ethically, you can make the world a better place.

Let me share with you what Tim had to say:

Hi Chris:

Re: the first [question], I don’t know of any studies suggesting that learning another’s language assists in economic integration, but it sure would seem to make sense. Actually, it seems so obvious - why else would everyone in the world have English as a second language - to make the point, but sometimes such obviousness misses the point too. So makes sense, but don’t know of studies to back it up.

Re: the second [question], it’s a mixed bag. Again, lots of people point to it. Tom Friedman has his Golden Arches Thesis which is that two countries with a McDonalds have never gone to war with each other. He amended that slightly after the Balkan problems a few years ago, but he also said that the issue was resolved once the electical grid in Belgrade was cut, thereby making McDonalds inoperable. The World Bank has some nice studies showing that a good predictor for civil war is if the main export product is an undifferentiated commodity - oil, diamonds, etc. There is a lot of economic argument - Hayek for example that international trade leads to international peace. On the other hand, if all this were true, why did World War I happen? In fact, at a talk I gave at Georgetown, one of the political scientists said that if there was ever a false connection that political scientists hoped they had killed it was that economic integration leads to peace, precisely because of WWI. The fellow did like my amendment that it is a particular type of integration - one that features ethical business behavior - that could contribute to peace rather than just integration. Colonialism, after all, was well integrated.

Hope this helps a bit. You are welcome to post these comments to get discussion going.

I read Professor Fort’s response as suggesting that the jury is still out on the second question (and/or perhaps it can’t be effectively measured); but he also suggests that economic integration that brings ethical behavior with it may help foster peace and stability.

What are your thoughts re: the answers to these two questions?

I was asked to step in and run our MBA program a little over two years ago. I had no experience or background to do so, whatsoever, but took on the job in part because I saw a challenge and the opportunity to build something cool. I also would not have taken the job had the Dean (my boss) not supported taking our MBA students on a trip like this.

Since that time, I have been mulling over, a lot, what experiences we might add to the Cal Poly MBA program and our curriculum to try to better expose our MBA students to leadership, what it means, how hard it is, why no organization or business can function without it, who might teach the course, how to get it through and approved by the university bureacracy, etc.

I don’t profess to be an expert on the subject. What little I know about leadership I learned on the street through athletics. In my life prior to academia, I never understood, really (and still don’t), working professionals that don’t “man-up” on leadership when working on a project for a client and/or who won’t step up and take risks and “own” a project from beginning to end and by doing so inspires others to do their best work, especially when the bullets start flying. Some of you have been there; others have yet to experience that frustration. In business lack of leadership means lost profits; and if you are the owner of that firm, your pain in this regard will be deep. I would give MBA programs across the US, including our own MBA program, a “D+” in the area of effectively addressing leadership issues in the curriculum and signaling to students “this — leadership — is expected of you.”

But to be fair to you, me and the program, here’s the rub and here are some of the legitimate issues that people who do teaching and research in this area struggle with …

Like ethics, can leadership be taught or learned in a 10-week MBA course? Is it genetic? Does the average 24-28 year old MBA student in the USA have enough life experience and wisdom and are they at the point in their lives where they are truly hungry to learn to be really, really great leaders? How do/can faculty be trained to teach leadership? Is the complaint of all those misinformed “do-gooders” out there about MBA students accurate — that they only care about making money, not being tomorrow’s great leaders of business AND socieity?

Think of just how complex this issue really is — we have three great military academies in the US (Air Force, West Point and Annapolis) that have devoted their entire existence and the bulk of their resources to training young men and women to be leaders, yet even these institutions, after 200 plus years of working on it full-time, don’t yet have this process and subject matter nailed. Yes, they do better than most, but like business organizations, they also struggle and fail in this important area.

Having said the above, Lonnie Hodge’s post on this Executive Leadership Climb in Tibet got me thinking about this topic and post. This climb sounds like an incredible opportunity to learn leadership skills. Interested? I would love to partake in an experience such as this.

Lonnie, tell us more about your climb!

Submitted By: Chris Arena

Poking around the China Daily website, an English version of China’s biggest news paper publication, one article in particular jumped off the screen: “West Has Nothing to Fear From Talks,” which obviously means that something is to be feared.

The article describes how Russia, India, and China will be holding a conference on February 14, that’s right ladies Valentines Day, to discuss international issues and among other things, oil. Interesting. I continued to scroll the China Daily home page until I came across an article titled “Strategic Oil Reserve Begins Operation in China.” How convenient that on the same day that China begins strategically storing oil to the tune of 150 million barrels, China announces the scheduling of international meetings to discuss oil imports. A quick Google search later and I come upon an article from the India Daily titled “Putin Leads BRIC Alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and Plays Oil Trump Card.” The article was published in January of 2005, but highlights the importance of international politics, oil, energy and the fight over it.

The Conspiracy: Is China creating its own alliance of oil producing countries to feed its growth, which will eventually, by market forces, be pushed against the United States oil alliances with the Middle East (if you can call them that)? Do I see a new high stakes East vs. West type conflict on the horizon over oil instead of nuclear weapons? Someone please prove me wrong. In a world where oil and energy is king, are the international super powers picking sides? Is China not doing what the United States has done for the past two decades in the Middle East? Your thoughts?

Kind of. I guess.

True, in earlier posts I said that I try to stay away from intractable issues relating to China where I can add little or nothing new to the debate (e.g., China - Taiwan, peasants rioting in the countryside, etc.). Then I read The View From Taiwan blog about China scholar/journalist James Mann’s testimony before a U.S. government panel on U.S. China relations, and I thought what he had to say was something new.

His basic argument: the US should stop assuming that China will move forward politically and become more open due to its economic progress, and instead plan for the contingency that China’s growth will NOT move it toward democracy. Its current autocratic state may very well be with the world community for a long time.

He must love the Talking Heads as much as I do, as his congressional testimony sounds like that killer line (”Same As It Ever Was …”) from one of their many hits, Once in a Lifetime.

I have been remiss in making this post, as work flow has been intense. But this topic is just too important for MBAs and our trip to not address, even if I am late getting it out. This post also directly ties into what Professor Ramezani spoke with you about several weeks ago.

A wonderful article appeared several weeks ago in the WSJ, “Why China Grows So Fast” by Nobel laureate in Economics, Michael Spence. I refer you to the China Law Blog’s excellent post and discussion thread on this article (where discussion on this topic exploded in terms of the number of comments). Dan Harris and the CLB posted long ago on this article, and his blog and comments bring you up to speed on this topic much better than I can at this point. Enjoy!

In China, you will notice that cell phones are EVERYWHERE. When a local answers his/her cell phone, they say “Wei? Wei?“, which is the English equivalent of “”Hello? Hello?”. “Wei” is pronounced like our word, “way”. [ By the "way", think of the business opportunities the number of cell phone users in China presents. But that is not the focus of this post. Rudeness is.]

The locals in China are constantly talking, loudly from my perspective, on their cell phones, using them during meals, while they walk with you, etc. I used to find it funny and endearing, but the more I am around it the more I find it bugs. In the home I grew up in, and in my own home now, if you were/are on the phone during a meal or when someone was/is trying to spend time with you, you are a dead man.

Two weeks ago I had a friend in town from Taiwan. I took her to a really nice place to eat in SLO. During the meal, three times, she took a call on her cellphone. The American patrons at nearby tables were not amused. I let it slide, but it made me start thinking about making this post.

Nobody is right or wrong on this, in my view. It is a cultural difference. The important thing is to understand the “why” (or “way”!) behind such differences.

[By the "way", here is a rudeness difference the Chinese could flip on us -- When I visit firms in China the person I meet with almost always walks me to to lobby, elevator and in some cases to my car to say goodby and this special attention they show always is impressive; in the US, on the other hand, I have visited firms where the parking lot is so large that finding/remembering where I parked my car after a long day of meetings is not easy (don't laugh, as you get older this will happen to you) yet I am on my own to find it because the person I met with never even bothered to step out of their office to say goodbye. So there are some best practices out there we can learn from the Chinese -- one being "pay attention to your customer" -- ask the Americans we meet in the PRC what are some of the other "best business practices" they have picked up from the Chinese.]

So, back to the cell phone issue — why do you think the Chinese use their cell phones in this “way”?

Comment below re: what you think, and THEN come back and read this post from the “This Is China” blog. No cheating!!

Submitted By: Erik Slayter

I recently received an email from Grant Thornton (a large, global accounting firm) describing to me what they call their “Interest” program. It is interesting to me that they are rolling out this program focusing specifically on the Chinese market. We have several accountants in the MBA program…is this enticing to you?

Under phase 1 of this program, Grant Thornton (GT) works with Chinese Nationals from the People’s Republic of China. Through this program, these accounting professionals are sponsored by GT for a 2-3 year work visa and work in a GT US office. Interest participants have a compensation package similar to that of other professionals at their same level in the US. Additionally, participants receive the same firm training as their colleagues and are provided a coach to assist in their skills development.

At the end of their 2-3 year stint in the US, they return to China for a position with the Grant Thornton International firm in China.

GT states that their program is different than a traditional exchange program offered by other firms because they have a larger dedication to their participants. Interest professionals meet annually with the firm’s national and international leadership to learn about specific Chinese initiatives. Biannually they participate in a videoconference link to the Shanghai or Beijing office to receive an general business update by a partner in the Chinese member firm. Finally, an annual visit home provides the Interest participant to meet with other Chinese professionals to develop relationships they can build on upon their return.