At issue are the rights of nearly 39,000 Chinese who were forced to work for the Japanese during the Second World War. Zhou Weihong of the Beijing Centre for Japanese Studies said: ‘’In the past, the Chinese government was not very supportive of the civil law suits filed against Japanese entities because they wanted to maintain a sort of diplomatic consistency. Now given the Japanese government, especially the Abe administration’s attitude towards history, the Chinese government has gradually given up the policies in the past and begun to offer a certain degree of convenience for individuals filing court cases.’ The ship that was seized is owned by one of the Japanese companies from whom compensation is being sought. Source: Financial Times