China strongly urged the Japanese government to bear its due
responsibility and obligations to thoroughly and completely destroy
the abandoned wartime chemical weapons at an early date in a bid to
remove the threat and danger to the country.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei made this remark in
Beijing Friday when he held talks with the visiting Japanese
Vice Minister of the Cabinet Office Takeshi Erikawa.
Wu said 60 years have passed since the end of aggression of
China by Japanese militarism, yet the chemical weapons abandoned by
Japanese aggressor troops are still posing a great threat to the
Chinese people and the environment.
China hopes Erikawa's visit will be conducive for the Japanese
government and people to acknowledge the sadistic brutality of the
Japanese invasion.
"The Chinese people fell victim to chemical weapons during the
Japanese militarist war of aggression against China and have fallen
victim to them in the following 60 years," he said.
China strongly urged the Japanese side to abide by the
Convention on the Banning of Chemical Weapons and the memorandum
that the two governments signed on the destruction of the abandoned
chemical weapons to shoulder its due responsibility and obligations
to destroy all the chemical weapons in China, Wu said.
Erikawa, who started his China tour on Tuesday, said the
Japanese government has attached great importance to the issue of
abandoned chemical weapons in China. The Japanese government will
make efforts to eliminate its negative historical legacy, he
said.
He promised that the Japanese will destroy the abandoned
chemical weapons as soon as possible in accordance with the
convention and on the basis of ensuring the safety of personnel and
the environment.
"The Japanese government is deeply regretful for the deaths and
injuries caused to the Chinese by the abandoned chemical weapons,
"said Erikawa, adding that the Japanese will expedite the disposal
of the chemical weapons to prevent similar accidents from happening
again.
Erikawa paid a visit to the burial site in Dunhua City of
northeast China's Jilin
Province from Tuesday to Thursday.
Official statistics show that Japan abandoned at least 2 million
tons of chemical weapons in about 40 sites in 15 provinces in
China, with a large proportion in the northeast part of the
country.
A total of 2,000 Chinese people have fallen victim to the
chemical weapons over the past decades.
An August 2003 toxic leak which killed one and injured 43 others
in Qiqihar City of northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province was the most serious tragedy in recent years.
China and Japan signed a memorandum in 1999 in which Japan
agreed to provide all the necessary funds, equipment and personnel
for the retrieval and destruction of all Japanese-abandoned
chemical weapons in China by 2007.
(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2005)