Abstract
This paper explores the British government’s measures for its civilian subjects stranded as ‘enemy aliens’ in Japanese-controlled areas in the Far East during World War II. The British government tried to protect the interests of these Far Eastern subjects during the war and in the immediate postwar period. Its manner of dealing with the latter’s redress movement from the late 1980s was initially reluctant but eventually became relatively adequate, thanks to the twin pressures of domestic public opinion and precedents set by other former Allied governments and the resolute struggles of the ex–Far Eastern subjects themselves.
Enemy aliens are civilians of enemy nationality in the territory of a belligerent during hostilities. 1
Historically, belligerents often treated enemy aliens harshly and even made them into civilian internees by putting them into restricted camps. 2 Belligerents’ rights to apprehend, restrain, secure and remove enemy aliens are still recognized by customary international law, even today. 3 Therefore, it is not surprising that academics have paid far greater attention to the suffering of enemy aliens and the actions of countries that caused their suffering than to the actions of these enemy aliens’ Countries of Origin. Moreover, scholars have seldom discussed the issues centring on enemy aliens after the end of hostilities. 4 And yet the actions of Countries of Origin are of importance, especially because these actions connect to an earnest concern that has preoccupied the international community since the early twentieth century, namely, how to secure the protection of enemy aliens in wartime. Equally, the postwar period is also worthy of attention, as the interests of enemy aliens needed to be protected not only during the war but also after hostilities were concluded.
To address these interlinked and understudied concerns, this article examines the UK government's wartime and postwar measures towards so-called Far Eastern subjects, those British civilians who were stranded in Japanese-controlled areas in the Far East during the Second World War. Between 15,000 and 19,800 of these Far Eastern subjects were put into various internment camps by the Japanese throughout the Far East region. 5 This article will focus on measures taken on the part of the UK authorities relating first to relief and second to compensation.
The diverse and complex context surrounding the Japanese internment of British civilians in the Far East and the traumatic experiences of individual internees have been well covered by scholars, but the actions of the British government in relation to the relief and wellbeing of its Far Eastern subjects has not been analyzed properly.
6
Although there have been a few articles on the memory of internment and the fate of Far Eastern subjects after the war, these also lack an official perspective.
7
Furthermore, according to the documented testimonies of Far Eastern subjects, retrieved through interviews, memoirs, diaries, and so on, they were generally of the opinion that the British government did too little for them, and even sacrificed their interests for military and political considerations, both during and after the war. Their opinion is well exemplified by the following quotation from the official journal of the Association of British Civilian Internees Far East Region (ABCIFER): Our members – who had remained loyally at their posts, as requested by the then British Government, in 1939 and 1940 and were let down in 1941, 1945–50, 1951, by the 1955 decision and ever since – are disgusted at having been let down by successive British governments.
8
As a result of the campaigns and legal actions of British Far Eastern subjects for compensation from the Japanese and British governments, which began in the mid-1980s, their opinion is now also shared to a large extent by the public and by relevant scholars both within and outside the UK.
But were successive UK governments really that indifferent to the fate of the Far Eastern subjects, either during or after the war? Using documents produced by the British government, as well as original sources from the ABCIFER, Japanese government, and international mediators, this article focuses on finding out what, precisely, the British authorities did for their Far Eastern subjects, and how they ended up being accused of supposed inaction towards them. Drawing on painstaking research in archives that have barely been used by other historians, Sections one and two provide a comprehensive examination of the measures taken by the British government with respect to its Far Eastern subjects during the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. Contrary to general opinion as regards the indifference of the British authorities, these two sections find that the government actually took the initiative to protect the interests of its Far Eastern subjects. However, some of the measures were problematic, which laid the groundwork for various controversies that would later arise during the ‘redress period’ from the late 1980s. Section three deals with this ‘redress period’, during which the British government was relegated to a passive player. While much of the existing scholarship on Britain's Far Eastern subjects touches on this period, 9 this section differs from these accounts in the following respects: it gives a far more complete history of the movement, it examines British official policies concerning the movement, and it finds that although the British government's measures were disappointing initially, its manner of dealing with the activism of Far Eastern subjects became relatively adequate eventually. The Conclusion, finally, aspires to explain why the British government did what it did at each specific point in time.
The findings of this article offer a complicated picture as regards the British government's treatment of its Far Eastern subjects and suggest it ultimately played an important part, for better or worse, in securing relief and compensation for its subjects. These findings, moreover, might alter people's overwhelmingly negative perceptions of the British government's attitude vis-à-vis its Far Eastern subjects. Finally, by examining the complex relations between the British government and its Far Eastern subjects over more than half a century, this article provides a revealing case study to elaborate on the unique role played by Countries of Origin in protecting the interests of enemy aliens both during wartime and in postwar periods, and to identify potential flaws in the measures put in place by Countries of Origin.
Wartime Protection: International Mechanisms and Beyond, 1941–1945
The Far Eastern subjects’ major grievance against the wartime British government was that ‘despite the looming Japanese threat’, it urged them ‘in 1939/41 to stay in their locations as the greatest contribution they could make to the Empire and War effort’, but ultimately ‘fail[ed] to protect’ them. 10 Despite this ultimate failure, the UK government actually did try to afford protection to its Far Eastern subjects throughout the war. The moment Japan invaded British territories in the Far East (e.g. Hong Kong) on 8 December 1941, the British Colonial Office (CO) established a department with specific responsibility for distributing news about interned British subjects and arranging relief for them. In the first weeks of 1942, the UK government also sought to negotiate with Japan to secure the repatriation of some of its interned subjects. 11
Subsequently, in a more important move to safeguard its Far Eastern subjects, the UK was involved in a diplomatic effort aimed at persuading Japan to apply, by analogy, the 1929 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (hereafter the 1929 Convention) to interned enemy aliens, who were not yet covered by any specialized international convention.
Most of the belligerents agreed to do so, under the call of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), shortly after Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. However, Japan signed but did not ratify the 1929 Convention. Therefore, the ICRC stepped in by suggesting that the fact Japan had not ratified this Convention would not obstruct its cooperation with the Allied countries in protecting both military and civilian captives, as long as the two sides reciprocally ‘declare[d] themselves willing to apply de facto the provisions’ of this Convention. 12 The UK and other Allied governments promptly declared their willingness and notified Japan accordingly. By February 1942, Japan also declared its willingness. 13 The 1929 Convention, together with a few provisions concerning enemy aliens in other international conventions and belligerents’ bilateral agreements or domestic regulations, thus formed the international mechanism for protecting enemy aliens during the war. 14
The mechanism ‘assigned’ three groups of actors – international intermediaries, belligerent governments and enemy alien organizations – to protect the interests of civilian internees; each actor also comprised multiple functional departments (Table 1). Under this mechanism, Countries of Origin mostly protected internees indirectly, through cooperation with the international intermediaries and their ‘backstage’ actions. As regards cooperation, they could, for instance, send relief funds and supplies to internees, or protest their enemies’ abusive behaviours through the delegates of the ICRC and Protecting Power. As regards ‘backstage’ actions, they could facilitate the global humanitarian network by setting up national information bureaus for captives, lifting blockades for transporting relief materials, and waiving postal fees. Financing international mediators was an especially important ‘backstage’ action: for instance, Countries of Origin would pay the Protecting Powers’ delegates for administrating their premises in their enemies’ territories and for relevant services there. Likewise, their donations were the main financial resources of the ICRC during the war, which were pooled together with donations from other channels for collective usage by the ICRC instead of being used for each country's captives specifically. 15
Three groups of protectors of civilian internees under the 1929 Convention.
Three groups of protectors of civilian internees under the 1929 Convention.
However, the British government still had to take enormous actions beyond the approved mechanism, for three main reasons. Firstly, Japan, especially its military, did not comply with the mechanism entirely, so additional means had to be implimented. Secondly, the UK government was often pressed by Far Eastern groups to do more. Thirdly, the 1929 Convention gave few instructions to the Countries of Origin and did not cover enemy aliens who were not interned, and it was largely within the discretion of the Countries of Origin to decide how to give assistance, such as relief in money or in kind, to their subjects stranded in enemy territories. For instance, it was impossible to organize any regular supply system for the Far Eastern internees, as Japan denied the Allies’ relief ships access to the region, with the exception of Hong Kong; still, the UK government managed to send some supplies there via two ships in connection with an exchange of diplomats in 1942. After difficult negotiations between the Allies, the ICRC, and Japan, a new relief route – from American ports, via Vladivostok, to Far Eastern ports – was arranged in 1944. But this arrangement was cancelled by Japan after its transport ship Hakusan Maru was torpedoed by the US in April 1945. 16
Fortunately, the UK managed to maintain regular channels to send funds to international mediators for the use of arranging relief locally for POWs, civilian internees, and un-interned British subjects in the Far East. Meanwhile, in Malaya, the Netherland East Indies, and the Philippines, where Japan permitted neither the Protecting Power nor the ICRC to exercise their proper functions, the UK found an alternative. It would supply funds to the Vatican, which had persuaded Japan to permit the representatives of the Holy See to organize relief for civilian internees there. Generally, these funds would be used to pay regular monthly allowances to British internees to supplement the provisions made for them by Japan; and for general relief (like the purchase of clothing, medical supplies, etc.), urgent expenses (like hospital expenses) and special diets for sick people and children. However, problems did occur at times. For instance, the UK transferred only 9,200,000 Swiss francs to the Swiss Chargé at Shanghai (the delegate of the Swiss government, the latter of which was the protecting power of the UK in the Far East) for each month of January, February, and March 1945, which was insufficient to cover the entire relief arrangements in occupied China; therefore, the latter had to suspend all comfort allowances and limit payments to the most urgent expenses. Likewise, according to a postwar account, ‘£90,000 sent monthly was not received by the ICRC delegate’; it was presumably intercepted by Japan. 17
Finally, the UK government also arranged special relief schemes with local groups. For instance, due to the negative attitude adopted by the Japanese occupation authorities towards remittances for relief purposes in the early days of the Pacific War, the UK government instructed the Swiss Chargé at Shanghai to set up a fund for the maintenance of destitute British subjects, into which endowments raised locally or paid by him (from funds supplied to him for British representations) could be made. The government suggested that the funds should be administered jointly by the Chargé and the British Residence Association (BRA). Nevertheless, it requested that the same conditions should be followed as for government funds when processing applications. For example, non-urgent applicants for exceptional grants were to be referred to the Foreign Office (FO), all applicants had to provide consular endorsement on British passports or other evidence, and applicants had to provide written promises to repay the funds granted them. Accordingly, a joint relief fund was set up in February 1942. Largely thanks to the self-support policy advocated by the BRA – namely, that demands upon the UK government should be reduced as far as possible – contributions to the fund were either donated or loaned by the British community through the BRA, up to 22 August 1942. Between that date and 31 December 1942, the contributions came from both the local community and the UK government. Thereafter, all relief to British subjects in China was financed by the UK government. 18
The negative part of British Far Eastern subjects’ recollections about the immediate postwar period centred on the fact that they had ‘lost all financial assets, homes, possessions, jobs, pensions, and education [… and] returned to the UK destitute’, and that, without adequate help from the UK government, they ‘were reduced to the status of refugees in their own country’. 19 Evidence suggests, however, that the UK government did make efforts to rehabilitate its Far Eastern subjects and to secure compensation for them, although problematic aspects also arose from these efforts. As early as 1943, the Allied governments started to consider postwar issues regarding civilian internees, such as who should be responsible for their liberation, their evacuation from the theatres of operation, and their repatriation back to their homelands. The authorities also considered how they could be helped to adapt to homeland conditions after their return, or to reintegrate themselves if they chose to remain in the Far East. After many rounds of negotiations among the Allied governments and among different bodies within each Allied country, arrangements on major issues were formalized through a series of memoranda. 20 Issues related to war damage claims against the Japanese government and compensation were also raised during the negotiations but were only properly considered after the war ended.
As regards British internees, the UK government considered that a temperate climate and the good facilities in the UK would be beneficial for their recuperation and restoration to full health and encouraged them to return to the UK for a certain period. 21 Along with the Allied agreement, the British War Office agreed to look after civilian internees before embarkation, but they would become the responsibility of the CO once on board, and the Far Eastern Relief Fund Committee (FERFC) would look after their welfare after their arrival in the UK. 22 The UK government also considered issuing the following warning to those who would return: ‘[A]s a result of the war, you are coming back to a world in which almost everything from ships to powder puffs are in very short supply’. 23 Still, the UK government prepared several welfare schemes for its returning subjects (Table 2). Those who decided to remain in the Far East also benefited from detailed pre-liberation arrangements tailored to each area in the region. For instance, in occupied China, the FO decided in September 1944 to enlist the services of Sir Allan Mossop, former Judge of HM Supreme Court at Shanghai, in this regard. A preliminary survey was drawn up in January 1945 and was then modified several times in light of further information from both China and other departments. 24
The UK government's arrangements for its Far Eastern subjects who returned to the UK.
The UK government's arrangements for its Far Eastern subjects who returned to the UK.
It took a lot of debate to reach an intra-governmental agreement on the arrangements specified in Table 2, and generally speaking, the benefits accorded to the British Far Eastern subjects were improved over the course of these debates. Initially, for instance, the Treasury and Assistance Board intended to stick to a government decision made in January 1942, which refused to treat Far Eastern repatriates more favourably than other British war victims at the public expense. 25 Thus, the Assistance Board only planned to give Far Eastern repatriates the same financial assistance to which other British victims were entitled, based on the 1934 Unemployment Act. 26 But the CO argued that Far Eastern repatriates’ situations were unique. For instance, the general income standards in the Far East were higher than those in the UK, and Far Eastern subjects’ grievances against the UK government would hamper the economic revival of the Far East, where they could make a valuable contribution to the British Empire's resources. 27 It was also argued that Far Eastern repatriates were suffering more than other British victims. For instance, victims of bombing in the UK enjoyed immediate benefits and amenities and had freedom; civilian internees in Germany could receive Red Cross parcels and their relatives’ post regularly, but the Far Eastern subjects, being cut off from the outside world, had to endure captivity at the hands of a crueller enemy, in a tougher climate, for a longer period. 28
The CO therefore suggested that, in addition to the Assistance Board allowance that was charged upon government funds, the Far Eastern repatriates should be given a supplementary allowance that could be issued through an unofficial fund, such as the FERF. On 1 August 1945, the FERFC was presented with a formal proposal based on this suggestion, which was agreed on by the CO and Treasury after considerable negotiations. 29 The FERFC agreed to take up this role and was aided by monetary contributions from the British Treasury, the governments of Hong Kong and Malaya, and the Lord Mayor's Empire Air Raid Distress Fund. When some internees were already on their way to the UK, the FERFC continued to approach civic organizations for additional grants. For instance, it approached the Duke of Gloucester's Red Cross & St. John Fund, on the grounds that the latter had received generous contributions from the British Community in the Far East during the first 2 years of the war. 30
After the termination of hostilities in the Far East, the UK government executed these pre-liberation arrangements quite effectively. However, before long, deficiencies in these arrangements led to substantial complaints from its Far Eastern subjects.
For those who returned to the UK, one common complaint was that before repatriation they had been apprehensive about their future life there and had been reassured by their government's Far Eastern representatives, who had said, ‘you will be looked after […] you will receive everything you need’; however, they then found that the cost of living in the postwar UK was so high, and the government's financial assistance to them so meagre, as to put them into hardship. For instance, a former internee repatriated from Hong Kong filed such a complaint and asked for at least double the amount paid to him, his wife and two children (£4 weekly). The CO thought this complaint was unfair since ‘carefully thought-out arrangements’ had been made for the Far Eastern repatriates, and it suggested that ‘much of the trouble arises from the fact’ that conditions in the UK were much harder than these repatriates expected, as they had failed to ‘visualize the full effect of six years of war and the present austerity’. Nevertheless, the CO admitted that the Assistance Board's financial assistance, although only intended to meet essential needs, was scant indeed and suggested that the internee seek further assistance from the FERF. Even if helped by the FERF, however, the complainant was unlikely to receive more than £8 weekly, as the maximum amount a family with two children was entitled to was £3/-16 weekly (/-61 from the Assistance Board and /-15 from FERF), plus any other FERF grants for children's education, heavy insurance premiums, medical care and so on. 31
For those who decided to stay in the Far East, especially in China, one common complaint was the delay and mishandling regarding the registration of their war damage claims against Japan. While the claims of returned British subjects were registered promptly by the Trade with the Enemy Department (TWED), according to a pre-liberation arrangement, no firm arrangement was made for handling British claims in China, apart from the FO's suggestion that the British consular establishment in China could help in this regard. After the war ended, British subjects, who hesitated to spend time and money on preparing claims that might be deemed unacceptable, longed for definite official guidance. This issue was raised as early as October 1945, when the British Ambassador visited Shanghai for the first time after the war, by the British Chamber of Commerce and China Association. Due to the continued absence of such guidance, the British community filed many complaints to their diplomats in China and to the FO directly. 32
Although British diplomats in China expressed sentiments such as ‘I am not unduly impressed by the querulous attitude of the British community, some of whom are still apt to regard themselves as the pearl of the British Empire’, and thought the fact that ‘so many of them place upon claims against the Japanese as their main means of rehabilitation in China’ was ‘rather pathetic’, they did sympathize with them and pressed for the FO's instruction on this issue. 33 However, the FO had to wait for a decision on a key question before passing on instructions – namely, whether to present the British war damage claims arising in China through the Chinese authorities or through the UK government. 34 This question was under constant consideration by various parties. Nevertheless, a decision on it could not be made until British policies on another, much more complicated issue – war reparations from Japan – were formed.
Reparations from Japan were one of the most important subjects at the first meeting of the newly established Far Eastern Section of the Economic and Industrial Planning Staff (EIPS) in mid-September 1945. 35 Still, it was impossible to form complete policies on this issue without the establishment of claim-dealing machinery with a clear basis for dividing reparations among the claimants, or without more information about the relevant policies of the US, which was responsible for postwar affairs concerning Japan, Japanese economic conditions and so forth. In addition, the UK also hesitated to press for reparations from Japan, fearing this would inevitably facilitate Japan's re-entering the world market and bring certain export-oriented British industries costly competition. In early November, the US president announced Ed Pauley, who had designed the reparations programme in Germany, as his personal representative on reparations matters from Japan, and the Far Eastern Commission, which was to handle reparations problems, was established in Washington. Following these developments, the UK government realized the urgency of setting out at least the main principles of the Japanese reparations issue, and it drafted an EIPS memorandum on 16 November 1945. The memorandum, however, provided that the subject of British claims in China would be ‘studied separately’ due to its complexity. 36
Thereafter, a prolonged study began, mainly by the FO, TWED, and EIPS. The relevant parties finally agreed to assimilate British claims in China to the UK government's existing claims in respect to the UK, Burma, and the Colonies, at a meeting on 20 November 1946. 37 Definite registration guidance was provided in around May 1947, and a War Damage Officer was attached to the British Consulate–General at Shanghai to handle correspondence with British claimants. In this correspondence, however, the claimants were warned that pending the final peace settlement with Japan, the UK government would not make any statement as to when and to what extent they might expect to receive compensation. 38 Moreover, complaints were filed again when some returned internees, who had already filed war damage claims forms with the TWED, were told by the War Damage Officer through the FO that these forms were superseded by his new form. What was worse, when some of them filled in this new form and sent it to Shanghai as instructed, they were told that it was unnecessary to do so, as they were now residing in the UK and the TWED had placed its records at the disposal of the War Damage Officer. The frustrated feelings that arose were still vividly remembered by these internees in the 1990s. 39
According to the discussion above, for ex-British internees who remained in China and elsewhere in the Far East, the forthcoming peace settlement with Japan was crucial in terms of getting fair compensation for years of suffering. It was the same with the ex-internees who returned to the UK. They were entitled to some compensation for personal injury and property loss, under the Personal Injuries (Civilians) Scheme and Private Chattels Scheme, respectively. However, apart from these schemes, the UK government maintained that compensation in respect of internment itself could not be granted. 40
After considerable discussions, which were carried out in the House of Commons between a Far Eastern captives’ association and members of all parties, and in the constituencies, a motion was accepted by the House on 10 May 1951, which requested the UK government to settle the British Far Eastern captives’ claims against Japan as soon as possible, through a treaty or other methods. The Far Eastern captives also demanded that Japanese compensation should be divided among themselves only, on a per capita basis, regardless of present need or hardship (ex-captives from the European theatre of war would be ineligible). 41
In light of the newly composed draft San Francisco Peace Treaty (SFPT) with Japan, the Foreign Secretary made a statement on compensation for ex–Far Eastern captives in the Commons on 25 July 1951. Two articles of the Treaty were closely related to this issue. Article 14 stipulated that ‘Japan should pay reparations to the Allied Powers for the damage and suffering caused by it during the war’ and empowered the Allies to seize all Japanese assets within their territories, subject to certain exceptions. Article 16 empowered the ICRC to liquidate Japanese assets that were transferred to it from neutral or ex-enemy countries, and to distribute the proceeds to national agencies for the benefit of former captives and their families. It was too early to make any arrangement for the proceeds arising from Article 16, but the UK government had decided that the proceeds arising from Article 14 should be spent on compensation for former POWs and civilian internees, as had already been done by the US. However, as the net value of Japanese assets in the UK would only amount to approximately £1,250,000, the government decided to put the proceeds of these assets at the disposal of selected benevolent organizations, which would then distribute the money to the ex-captives who were in need, but apart from the Far Eastern captives, this policy also included ex-captives from other theatres of war, such as the European. 42
This solution, which was contrary to the terms of the aforementioned 10 May motion, was immediately protested by Far Eastern groups. 43 Despite this, shortly after the conclusion of the San Francisco Conference, meetings among relevant departments were organized to discuss how to give effect to the Foreign Secretary's July statement. Organisations representing the Three Services and civilian internees were also approached: for instance, the British Red Cross Society was asked to prepare the distribution of the civilian share of the Japanese assets. 44
Fortunately for the claimants, however, the UK government finally succumbed to the constant protests of the Far Eastern groups, and a detailed distribution scheme was announced in early October 1952. Through various discussions carried out before and after the announcement, relevant departments realized that as the total sum available would be small, the qualifications for a grant under the scheme would have to be narrow, for otherwise individual payments would be derisory (Table 4). 45 Eventually, £4,816,491 was gained from the sale of Japanese assets in the UK, and in neutral or enemy countries. The maximum sum received by each ex-POW was £76 (they also received a share from the sale of the Siam–Burma Railway), while individual ex-civilian internees received £48.50.
Between 1952 and 1956, around 8,800 ex-civilian internees received this sum, and they were extremely disappointed with this meagre amount. 46 What was worse, in 1955, Japan had made a war compensation arrangement with the Swiss (and with 11 other countries subsequently), which was ‘more advantageous’ than the SFPT. The latter entitled the Allies, under Article 26, to claim similar advantages. Yet, although the British FO knew all about this, it decided not to reopen the compensation issue in the interest of Japan's economic restoration and Cold War politics. It further chose not to publicize this controversial decision. 47
During the immediate postwar period, the British population, preoccupied by its own wartime sufferings and reconstruction, was generally indifferent to the wartime experiences of Far Eastern subjects. The British national narrative of the Second World War centred on the heroic resistance against the Nazis in Europe, and so the experiences of Far Eastern subjects – a reminder of the humiliating British retreat in the Far East – were merely an unpleasant sideshow. Moreover, re-evaluating the British Empire and condemning the related colonial oppressions were trends at the time, which rendered the positions of most Far Eastern subjects, as the formal and informal agents of British imperialism, awkward. These circumstances discouraged most Far Eastern subjects from talking about their wartime experiences publicly in the immediate aftermath of the war. Eventually, both the Far Eastern subjects’ willingness to talk about their experiences and public recognition of these experiences did emerge, firstly in the 1950s, when the compensation issues were raised, and then in the 1960s and 1970s, when there were significant socio-cultural changes in Britain – first, a ‘national’ narrative of history started to give way to a focus on more fragmented personal memories, especially the memories of the marginalized, persecuted or victimized, and second, largely as a result of Japanese Emperor Hirohito's controversial state visit to the UK in 1971, the British public started to be interested in the Far Eastern theatre of the Second World War. 48
In the 1980s, the Far Eastern subjects were further motivated to recollect their past, as most of them were ageing and colonial nostalgia, such as ‘Raj nostalgia’, became an established feature of British culture; successful novels, films and TV series concerning the Far Eastern subjects, such as Empire of the Sun (1984), also created a renewed public awareness about their wartime experiences. 49 Interconnected with these developments was the redress campaign carried out by the Far Eastern subjects themselves. In 1987, Mrs Renee Cumberbatch went on a world trip to meet her friends, who had been interned together with her in Shanghai during the war but were now scattered globally. She realized the existence of a general desire for reunions and endeavoured to bring more ex–Far Eastern internees together. Their first worldwide reunion took place at a hotel in Weybridge, UK, in October 1988, and the majority of the 350 participants revealed an inclination to seek compensation and an apology from the Japanese government. It was this that prompted the establishment of the ABCIFER on 26 January 1994. 50
The inadequate amount paid to ex-British internees under the SFPT was the main reason for their renewed redress attempt. ‘More should be forthcoming now that Japan no longer faced the economic difficulties it did in 1951, which was the stated reason for the low level of compensation originally offered’, commented the ABCIFER. Furthermore, worldwide, some governments had started compensating individual wartime victims of around this time. For instance, in 1988, US President Ronald Reagan paid $20,000 compensation to each victim of its act of interning Axis nationals or descendants residing in the US during the war. 51 Finally, closely related to the foregoing reasons was the rise of an International Redress Movement upon the Japanese government in the 1990s, mainly sponsored by scholarly and activist groups in North American, East Asian, and European countries. These groups’ spirits were further boosted by the stepping down in 1993 of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party that had ruled Japan since 1955, and the appointment of more liberal politicians as Prime Ministers (PM), such as Morihiro Hosokawa and Tomiichi Murayama, who adopted an apologetic stance towards the victims of Imperial Japan. Therefore, it was not surprising that one important strategy used by the ABCIFER, which was relatively weak in terms of its size and influence, was to cooperate with other Far Eastern groups globally (Table 3). 52
Examples of organizations that had cooperated with the ABCIFER.
Examples of organizations that had cooperated with the ABCIFER.
Initially, the ABCIFER had multiple options on how to seek compensation. 53 For instance, the Far Eastern groups in Canada, New Zealand and Australia were considering suing their own governments for having entered the SFPT. The ABCIFER ruled out this option from the beginning, since it was grateful to the British government, which had been supportive of its cause. Another option was to set up a foundation using money from Japanese companies, such as Mitsubishi and Nissan. This option was attractive to some British officials and ABCIFER members and was even mentioned by the British PM John Major to Japanese PM Hosokawa during a meeting in Tokyo in September 1993. 54 The foundation route seemed to offer the quickest and most feasible way to recover compensation, but the sums redeemed through this route might be as derisory as the amount offered by the Japanese Assets Scheme in the 1950s. One more option was to sue the Japanese government, and this might have ensured fair compensation to all for losses suffered. But this option would be slow and difficult, as going through all the stages of Japan's legal system would be time-consuming, and as the Japanese government would be reluctant to pay, because if it compensated one group, it would have to compensate millions of other victims of Imperial Japan, and it might therefore be inclined to drag the matter out until most of the internees had died. Eventually, the ABCIFER decided on the option of suing the Japanese government as the voting at its first Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) was overwhelmingly in favour of this option, and to do so with other national groups of ex-internees, while it also endorsed some members’ choice of pursuing the foundation route. 55
In January 1995, the combined UK/NZ/US/Australia group filed a lawsuit at the Tokyo District Court. 56 The ex-internees held that, by treating them brutally, Japan had violated the Hague Regulations and customary international law of war for which Japan was liable, as well as the 1929 Convention. They also argued that individual plaintiffs were entitled to compensation by international law and that this right had not been extinguished by the SFPT settlement. They therefore requested the Japanese government to issue an official apology and to pay symbolic compensation in the amount of no less than US $22,000 per claimant (which was the sum paid by the US government for interning Axis subjects in 1988, plus legal expenses). 57
While the legal proceedings were ongoing in Japan, the ABCIFER also exerted itself to lobby the British government for support. The British government, together with the British public and the media, was very sympathetic to the ex-internees; nevertheless, it also had made great efforts since the mid-1980s to develop ‘a strong political and economic link with Japan ahead of’ its ‘main European competitors’. 58 Thus, its strategy on the issue was ‘to avoid damage to Britain's wider interests in Japan but to see what if anything could be done to help’. 59 More specifically, it said to the ABCIFER representatives on multiple occasions (e.g. during Major's meeting with them on 21 June 1995), that it considered the compensation issue as legally settled by the SFPT Treaty and therefore could not support their lawsuit. Nonetheless, the government did assist the ABCIFER in other ways. For instance, British diplomats in Tokyo received the ABCIFER representatives warmly and helped them to arrange meetings with Japanese politicians. Moreover, after considerable diplomatic endeavours, Murayama offered an ‘unprecedented’ written apology directed specifically at the ex–Far Eastern captives in his letter to Major on 14 July 1995, and publicly reiterated the apology during a VJ day event in 1995. 60 In addition, the British government tried to persuade Japanese actors to give ex-internees non-compensatory financial assistance. For instance, it sent a delegation to Tokyo that attempted to persuade Japanese companies to make contributions to the aforementioned foundation, but these efforts turned out to be futile. Then, it asked the Japanese government to make a substantial donation to a British charity; Japan declined to do so, but offered to include the ex-internees in its Peace, Friendship and Exchange Initiative, which supported exchange visits and historical research. 61
Although the British government's support was far from satisfactory, the ABCIFER remained grateful towards the government until March 1998, when it unearthed several FO documents relating to the UK government's decision not to reopen the compensation issue with Japan in 1955. 62 The ABCIFER argued that successive British governments had ‘deliberately and secretively deprived British civilian internees the opportunity to negotiate meaningful compensation from the Japanese’ by its 1955 decision, and had misled Parliament and the public to believe that ‘the matter of compensation was legally closed’. 63 This issue was brought up in an EGM of the ABCIFER on 13 May 1998, during which the possibility of suing the British government was raised; still, its committee maintained that however ‘culpable of neglect the British Government may be’, their claim was against Japan, ‘not the British taxpayer’; nevertheless, the ABCIFER released copies of these documents at a press conference, and passed them to the UK government, in order to press for the latter's support of its legal claims against Japan. 64 Further pressure was put on the UK government when ABCIFER members turned their backs on the Japanese Emperor on 26 May 1998 during his state visit to the UK. Their action, which was seized on by the media, brought about a hastily arranged meeting on 10 June 1998 with the British PM Tony Blair, who expressed sympathies for them. Still, no concrete support came from the government. 65
What was more disappointing, the UK/NZ/US/Australia group's court action in Tokyo failed on 26 November 1998. The Tokyo District Court neither confirmed nor denied the veracity of the plaintiffs’ claims of brutal treatment, but simply ruled that the claims to compensation ‘lack premise and therefore it is not necessary to judge whether the aggressive acts took place or whether the damage was done’. But the court's stance on the compensation to civilian internees in general was reflected in its ruling in the Dutch case on 30 November (the two cases had different sets of judges). This ruling accepted that Japan had violated the human rights of the Dutch who were interned in the East Indies but maintained that compensation was obtainable only through the intermediary of the state, whose national the claimant was, and that the issue of compensation was settled under the SFPT. 66
After the failure of the initial court action, the ABCIFER started pursuing three routes side by side: first, pressing ahead with the appeal process in Japan; second, urging the UK government to reopen the SFPT with Japan; and third, urging the UK government to compensate ex-internees from its own sources. Only the last route achieved some measure of success.
Continuing the legal action against Japan was symbolically important for the ABCIFER, as gaining redress from Japan was its original aim, and it was practically important as this maintained its ‘credibility and determination to achieve [its] aims in Japan, the UK and elsewhere […] otherwise all parties will close down the files, including action against HMG’. 67 Therefore, the ABCIFER, together with its fellow groups, appealed to the Tokyo High Court immediately after their failure with the Tokyo District Court. After the UK government announced an ex gratia scheme to ex-internees in 2000, the legal action in Tokyo was still continued, partially because it might win compensation for those ex-internees who were ineligible for this scheme under the ‘bloodlink criterion’, which required either the claimants, or a parent or grandparent of them, to have been born in the UK. However, the ABCIFER failed again at the High Court on 27 March 2002. Then their case went to the Tokyo Supreme Court but also foundered on 30 March 2004, for similar reasons as in the above-mentioned Dutch case. Thereafter, it was decided among the ABCIFER, and its British and Japanese lawyers, that there was no mileage in pursuing any further legal action against Japan. 68
As regards re-opening the SFPT with Japan, the FCO held a review into this issue not long after the ABCIFER made the 1955 documents known publicly. Although it acknowledged that some treaties signed between Japan and other countries indeed conferred greater advantages that would allow the SFPT to be reopened, it maintained that the lapse of time and other legal complexities precluded it from doing so. 69 The ABCIFER was outraged as it thought the lapse had been caused by the government itself, who decided not to reopen the case in 1955 and classified documents relating to this decision until 1987. 70 In the following years, it continued to raise the issue with the UK government on many occasions. Only after the Ministry of Defence's reiteration of the government's disinclination to reopen the SFPT in late 2004 did the ABCIFER's action in this regard come to a halt. 71
Finally, when it came to the ABCIFER's success in securing compensation from the UK government, here, the organization was able to benefit from other Far Eastern groups’ achievements, which were, in turn, facilitated by the ABCIFER's discovery of the 1955 documents. The ABCIFER sent these documents, and the UK's correspondence with Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, who had also agreed not to reopen the 1951 SFPT, to Far Eastern groups in these countries. 72 Subsequently, in June 1998, the Canadian government agreed to give an award of C$24,000 (in addition to the sums paid in the 1950s) to around 350 POWs who had been forced into slave labour by Japan in wartime Hong Kong, or to their widows. The Canadian government therefore admitted that its 1955 decision had harmed its citizens and corrected that error. Although the Canadian actions concerned POWs only, the ABCIFER saw these as important precedents for the UK government. 73 More importantly, arising from the Canadian actions, the Royal British Legion (RBL), which had 685,000 veterans as members at the time, passed a resolution during its AGM on 30 May 1999 requesting the government to pay a single gratuity to the surviving Far Eastern POWs or widows. In recognition of the ABCIFER's discovery of the 1955 documents, the RBL also invited it to join its actions. Although the RBL could not represent civilians, both the RBL and the ABCIFER believed that any progress on the part of ex-POWs could only benefit ex-internees. 74
The UK government initially rejected paying such a gratuity on the ground that the common policy of successive British governments was to refrain from making financial compensation in such circumstances (which was true to some extent, as seen from the discussions in Section 2). 75 Nevertheless, it gradually succumbed to the overwhelming pressure. In a campaign that commenced on 20 October 1999, the RBL emphasized that its resolution had gained support from an all-party majority in the Commons and from 71% of the population, based on a public survey. 76 After a meeting between the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence and an RBL delegation on 10 April, the UK government started inter-departmental preparation for a payment scheme to ex–Far Eastern POWs. It later decided to extend the scheme to ex-internees. On 7 November 2000, Tony Blair met the delegates of the RBL, JLCSA and the ABCIFER at the National Army Museum and announced the government's plan to award ex gratia payments of £10,000 to Far Eastern POWs, merchant seamen, civilian internees and their widows or widowers. 77 This scheme was more generous in terms of the sum, and more inclusive in terms of eligibility requirements, than the 1950s Japanese Asset Scheme (Table 4). Claimants who had not been eligible in the 1950s, either because they were not adults or had been residents overseas, would now be eligible. 78
Eligibility requirements of the Japanese Assets Scheme and ex gratia scheme.
However, discussions about retrospectively introducing more eligibility criteria to the ex gratia scheme were started after the latter was announced, for the following possible reasons. Firstly, when the UK government was preparing for the ex gratia scheme, it intended only to give payments to civilians with a strong link to the UK. Nevertheless, the scheme was announced hastily and without proper deliberation on the precise basis to assess such a link. 79 Secondly, soon after the scheme was announced, several issues were raised that urgently required clarification on eligibility criteria. For instance, the War Pensions Agency (WPA)'s project manager noted that the scheme's leaflet stipulated ex-internees who ‘are a UK national’ were eligible, while the claim form suggested an ex-internee who ‘was a UK national’ was eligible; he then posed the following question on 13 November: at what point was a claimant's nationality relevant, currently or at the time of internment? Thirdly, retrospective eligibility criteria could help cut the number of claimants, which turned out to be far greater than anticipated. It had been estimated that up to 16,700 people might be eligible for the scheme. However, 29,000 applicants had been processed by 13 July 2005. The ABCIFER further indicated that ‘when the MOD took over the WPA [on 8 June 2001], they realized that the budget was overspent [since the number of military and military dependents were miscalculated] and decided to make economies – the simple solution was to axe the civilians somehow’. 80
In the process of deciding new eligibility criteria for the scheme, most government officials agreed that ‘British subjects’ should be defined as those who were British at the time of their internment. However, the position of those who were ‘British subjects’ but not born in the UK was tricky. On 15 December 2000, the Department for Work and Pensions expressed its intention to extend the scheme to such people as long as their parent(s) were born in the UK. When it wrote to the Cabinet Office on 15 March 2001, it extended the scheme further by including applicants who had British-born grandparent(s) and the writer commented: ‘[T]his is a proposal which I am reasonably confident would be acceptable to the ABCIFER’. 81 It seems that this ‘bloodlink criterion’ started being applied when processing the claims around late March 2001. 82
Ironically, this criterion was heavily criticized by the Far Eastern subjects, who argued that it reflected the consistently cynical stance of the British government towards them, and was discriminatory against British subjects born overseas. 83 In 2002, the ABCIFER applied for judicial review on the legality of the scheme. The High Court held that the MOD's action in retrospectively changing the rules, which had resulted in the rejection of one-third of the civilian applications, was ‘unfair but not unlawful’. The ABCIFER's subsequent legal attempts with the Court of Appeal and House of Lords also failed. 84 A turning point came on 7 July 2005, when the High Court ruled in favour of Mrs Diana Elias, an India-born British subject who had been interned in Hong Kong. She argued that the ‘bloodlink criterion’ was unlawful, as it indicated indirect racial discrimination against those of non-British origin. Then, Mrs Elias's case was brought to the Central London County Court, for the award of damages to be considered on 23 February 2006. This court awarded Mrs Elias £3,000 damages plus interest for injury to feelings under the Race Relations Act, but rejected her claim for the ex gratia payment. Both Mrs Elias and the MOD opted to appeal against the ruling. However, pending the outcome of the appeal, the MOD repealed the ‘bloodlink criterion’ and made the ex gratia payment to Mrs Elias on 26 June 2006. 85
This unexpected action of the MOD was arguably related to an Ombudsman's special report sent to it on 18 January 2005. 86 In December 2001, Professor Jack Hayward, who was interned as a British subject in Shanghai and returned to the UK after the war, complained to the Ombudsman after his application for the ex gratia payment was rejected under the ‘bloodlink criterion’. The Ombudsman found that four aspects of the MOD's handling of the ex gratia scheme constituted maladministration, such as the lack of clarity when the scheme was announced, and different treatments between applications made before and after the ‘bloodlink criterion’ was introduced (payments were made to some earlier applicants who did not meet the criterion). In response to recommendations made in the Ombudsman's report, the MOD apologized on 13 July to Professor Hayward and those in similar positions to him for the distress caused by its maladministration, and issued a £500 one-off payment as a form of tangible apology in October 2005. However, the MOD hesitated to review the whole scheme in terms of the ‘bloodlink criterion’, which was also recommended by the Ombudsman. It finally promised to do so on 30 January 2006, under further pressure from the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC), which described the MOD's hesitation as ‘a source of regret, and shame’ and urged it to conduct the review ‘with the urgency and generosity of the scheme's original intention’. 87
After deliberation with the ABICFER and other parties from around March 2006, a new basis to prove a close link to the UK was announced on 26 June 2006: applicants should either have resided in the UK for at least 20 years between 1 January 1945 and 7 November 2000, or be able to satisfy the criteria of the 1950s Japanese Asset scheme (Table 4). 88 Furthermore, the MOD announced a brand new ‘injury to feelings scheme’ on 26 January 2007, which offered £4,000 to any person whose application for an ex gratia payment had been rejected due to the ‘bloodlink criterion’ and who was of non-UK national origin, such as Mrs Elias. However, a complaint about this new scheme was brought to the Ombudsman, which arose from the fact that the MOD had decided internally not to grant British protected persons the payment, but did not mention this when announcing the new scheme. This time, after receiving the Ombudsman's report on 4 May 2011, the MOD promptly accepted their findings in full and acted on their recommendations. 89
This examination of the British government's relief and compensation measures towards its Far Eastern subjects has revealed that the government did try to protect the latter's interests both in wartime and the immediate postwar period. It did so out of sympathy for overseas subjects as well as pragmatic considerations – the Far East region could make a valuable contribution to the British Empire's resources and prestige, and the preservation of the Empire remained an objective for both Conservative and Labour politicians at the time. However, the British government was unavoidably handicapped by various circumstances. For instance, diplomatic complications prevented it from giving timely instructions about war damage claims to the British community in China in the late 1940s; likewise, the postwar economic crisis and austerity in the UK, largely caused by accumulated wartime debts, also limited the relief it could provide to Far Eastern repatriates. Moreover, in considering the still weak condition of the Japanese economy, the UK government waived a large proportion of its just claims against Japan when signing the SFPT in 1951. When the opportunity of re-negotiating the SFPT arose in 1955, for the same consideration, and because of the difficulty of determining what further benefits this opportunity entitled it to and what these benefits would be worth in monetary terms, the UK government decided not to demand more compensation for the ex-internees. These decisions suggest the UK government ultimately prioritized Japan's economic recovery and Cold War concerns over the interest of their own nationals. 90
During the ‘redress period’, when both the Empire and the war had receded as current concerns and relations with Japan became increasingly vital for the UK, the British government seemed to be even more reluctant to help the Far Eastern subjects. This reluctance was further reinforced by practical issues. For instance, legal complexities partially explained why it refused to reopen the SFPT. Similarly, because of its longstanding non-compensation position towards internees, it initially refused to compensate ex-internees from its own sources. But it eventually bowed to the twin pressures of domestic public opinion and the examples of its peers, and announced the ‘ex gratia’ payment scheme (which is different from compensation by definition). As regards the ‘peer’ pressures, apart from the Canadian case mentioned in Section 3, many other former Allied states also made payments to ex-Far Eastern captives; even the Tynwald (the parliament of the Isle of Man) passed a resolution in June 2000 that every resident of the Isle, who was either a POW or internee incarcerated by Japan during the war, would receive a payment of £10,000. 91 Concerning the subsequent ‘bloodlink criterion’ controversies, maladministration was the ostensible explanation of the decisions that were made, but we might speculate on some deeper causes.
To start with, when assisting Far Eastern subjects (and other war victims) from public funds, successive British governments always required the beneficiaries to have ‘close links’ with the UK. Though the criteria for such links varied over time, in all periods covered by this article, those who failed to demonstrate such links were barred from receiving adequate financial assistance from the British government. During the war, ‘close links’ were defined by contemporary subjecthood. The British relief schemes covered all British subjects in the Far East, but excluded the dependents of British internees who were not British subjects (e.g. unmarried partners or adopted children), who were normally not interned but who nonetheless were badly affected by the internment of those they depended on. 92 During the immediate postwar period, ‘close links’ were redefined by country of residence. Those who had not returned to the UK were ineligible for various relief and compensation schemes offered by the British government.
However, using blood to define ‘close links’ not only inflicted financial loss on the Far Eastern subjects, but also painfully reminded them of the strife about citizenship and racism that had already haunted them for decades. 93 This historical background was probably overlooked by the British government when implementing the ‘bloodlink criterion’. Far Eastern subjects were interned by the Japanese authorities solely on the grounds of their British subjecthood during the war. Since Britain entered the imperial age, its definition of a British subject – based on jus soli that had its origin in mediaeval England – had been extremely wide. For instance, the 1914 British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act, which was still in force during the Second World War, stipulated that anyone ‘born within His Majesty's dominions and allegiance’ was deemed to be a British subject. The British government also consistently asserted that all British subjects should be treated equally. However, in reality, subjects of colour were taken to be inferior to white subjects and were treated unequally. As more and more non-white colonial subjects immigrated to the UK in the postwar decades, the British government sought to restrict their rights of entry from 1962, and the idea of bloodline underpinned much of the relevant legislation and official discourse. For instance, in 1971, the British government allowed only ‘patrials’ (anyone with a parent or grandparent born in the UK) to enter the UK. ‘The special provisions for grandparents, combined with the vaguely ethnic overtones of the word “patrial”’, were criticized heavily for their essentially racist meaning. 94 A separate British citizenship was then created by the 1981 British Nationality Act, which mapped onto the idea of ‘patriality’ and jus sanguinis. ‘Britishness’ was finally redefined in a much narrower sense, in terms of both geography and race. Many ex–Far Eastern subjects were not qualified to be British by the standard of 1981, though they had suffered for being British in 1941–1945.
Finally, when the 1981 British Nationality Act was passed, multiracialism had already become an indisputable characteristic of British society; furthermore, extensive anti-discriminatory legislation had been enacted by successive British governments from the 1960s, which ensured that open racism was increasingly intolerable. 95 This context probably explained why Mrs Elias's case could become the turning point for repealing the ‘bloodlink criterion’. Mrs Elias's case, and other cases brought by the Far Eastern subjects, also made the British government truly realize that it was dealing not only with a legacy of the Second World War, but also with the legacy of Britain's imperial past in Asia. It was after this realization that its manner of treating the Far Eastern subjects finally become appropriate. 96
Footnotes
Author Details
Chan Yang received her PhD from University of Bristol (UK) and is an Associate Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University now. Her research interests include World War Two and its legacies, and Sino–Japanese relations. In addition to Chinese and English, she can also speak Japanese fluently. She had various experiences of conducting research in China, Japan, the UK and the US, and these experiences have yielded several fruitful results, including her recent monographs: World War Two Legacies in East Asia: China Remembers the War (London, New York: Routledge, 2017) and Reconsidering Japan's World War Two Memory (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, forthcoming). Currently, she is working on a project about the internment of enemy aliens during WWII and relevant postwar legacies.
Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This article was supported by the Chinese National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences under grant 22CSS019.
