The Foreign Ministry yesterday flayed the Tokyo High Court's overturning of a landmark ruling which ordered the Japanese government to compensate Chinese laborers forced to work in Japan during World War II.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China is opposed to any "one-sided interpretation" of the China-Japan Joint Statement.

"No one-sided interpretation of the important principles and issues in the China-Japan Joint Statement, including a legal interpretation, should be given by either side," said Qin.

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday overturned the landmark ruling by the Niigata District Court, which has ordered the Japanese government and a Niigata-based company to compensate Chinese victims, the first time a Japanese court had acknowledged the state's responsibility for wartime forced labor.

Japan's Supreme Court is due to begin debating the suit today. It will be the first time Japan's top judiciary interprets specific sections of the China-Japan Joint Statement.

Qin pointed out that the joint statement has been the basis of development of China-Japan relations, and neither country should be able to devise its own interpretation of it alone.

On Tuesday, the Tokyo High Court also rejected an appeal by five Chinese victims who demanded a total of $684,000 from the Japanese government as compensation for injuries caused by leaks from chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Japanese army.

The five victims, from Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, filed the lawsuit in the Tokyo District Court in October 1997.

In May 2003, the court acknowledged that the plaintiffs were injured by the abandoned weapons, but rejected their demand for damages.

The Japanese government estimates some 700,000 chemical weapon shells were left in northern and eastern China when its forces left at the end of World War II.

Source: China Daily/agencies