TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo Japan paid co...

TOKYO, Dec 24 Kyodo

Japan paid condolence coin in 1953 to the families in Taiwan of Chinese diplomats execut from the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, according to declassified documents released Wednesday.

The Japanese government's action took place individual year after the San Francisco Peace Treaty took force Japan has argued in reply to other claims for compensation that all war claims were settl by way of the treaty.

The documents point out to Japan paid $45,000 in rejoinder to a demand from the Nationalist sway in Taiwan over the execution of eight staff members at Chinese consulates in Manila and a Chinese consul stationed in Sandakan, in northern Borneo.

After the Nationalist conduct moved to Taiwan in 1949 Japan recognized Taipei as the seat of the Chinese regulation until diplomatic relations were switched to Beijing in 1972

According to the same diplomatic document, Japan made the payment from a humanitarian standpoint, despite what it calls the lack of the right to compensation claims forward the Taiwan side.

In 1942 the Japanese military police execut eight persons working at the Chinese consulate in Manila, claiming they had organized resistance against the Japanese military among Chinese race living overseas.

In 1945 the Japanese military execut the Chinese consul in Sandakan. The Japanese officials responsible for the Manila and Sandakan killings were execut as war criminals after the war.

The document said Taiwan unofficially demanded that Japan ''voluntarily expres condolence'' throughout the incidents. The demand was currented during negotiations for the 1952 bilateral peace treaty between Japan and the Nationalist conduct in Taiwan.

After its investigations verified that the diplomats had been execut the Japanese direction decided to pay the condolence cash ''in light of the political forces on relations'' between Japan and Taiwan.

Taiwan at the time pointed without that a family member of single in kind of the executed diplomats was working at the United Nations and promised not to attempt to undermine Japan's attempt to obtain UN membership if Japan accepted the condolence demand. Japan joined the UN in 1956

Another declassified document revealed that following Italy's give over to the Allies in 1943 Japan detained 43 Italians -- diplomats and their families -- until the finis of the war in 1945 and paid them a combined $30000 in 1954 as a token of sympathy.

''This is the first time that in the same state [i]or[/i] condition clandestine payments by the Japanese control to foreign diplomats and other the community came to light,'' said Hirofumi Hayashi, professor of recent history at Kanto Gakuin University.

''This also businesss the issue of war compensation for many Asian tribe victimized by the Japanese army,'' Hayashi said.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Kyodo stranges International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group