Japan destroys chemical weapons in China
Print Edition
A FACILITY built in China by Japan yesterday began destroying the largest cache of World War II chemical weapons abandoned in the country.
The facility is in Harbaling in northeast China, where up to 400,000 chemical weapons are believed to have been left behind by the invading Japanese army, a government official at Japan’s Cabinet Office said.
Both Japanese and Chinese staff work at the facility, the official said.
Ties between China and Japan are at their worst for years over a territorial dispute in the East China Sea, and the continuing legacy of Japan’s brutal 20th-century occupation.
In 1999 China and Japan agreed to destroy the devices, with Japan providing all necessary funds, technology, experts and other resources. Originally the process was meant to be completed by 2007, a deadline later pushed back to 2012. It has since been delayed further.
The Japanese government’s Abandoned Chemical Weapons Office says that a total of 47,000 chemical munitions have previously been “excavated, recovered and stored.”
China has urged Japan to work faster on the issue. “The progress is still lagging far behind the plan set by China and Japan,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters. “China asks Japan to increase their input both in terms of personnel and materials and accelerate the destruction of chemical weapons left by Japan in China.”
Japan used more than 7,300 tons of toxic gases to make 7.5 million weapons between 1931 and 1945, according to Japanese scholar Yoshiaki Yoshimi.
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