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Letter from Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian
to US Secretary of State George Shultz,
regarding China's accession to the
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
(excerpts)
16 November 1984
(From Xinhua, 16 November 1984, in FBIS Special Memorandum, 18 December 1991)
In accordance with the decision of the NPC Standing Committee, PRC President Li Xiannian has approved the entry of the PRC into the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on the Destruction of Such Weapons which was signed in Washington, London, and Moscow on 10 April 1972.
The basic spirit of the antibiological weapons convention is in keeping with China's consistent stand and is beneficial to the peace-loving countries and people in opposing aggression and defending world peace. China was one of the victims of biological (bacteriological) weapons. China has never produced and possessed such weapons, nor will it do so in the future. However, the Chinese Government holds that the convention has drawbacks. For instance, it fails to clearly stipulate the prohibition of using biological weapons, fails to define specific and effective measures for supervision and inspection, and lacks effective measures in accusation procedures for dealing with cases of violations of the convention. The Chinese Government hopes that these drawbacks can be compensated for and improved at an appropriate time. The Chinese Government also hopes that a convention on the all-around prohibition and complete destruction of chemical weapons will be formulated as soon as possible.
This
material is produced independently for NTI by the James Martin
Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of
International Studies and does not necessarily reflect the
opinions of and has not been independently verified by NTI or
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MIIS.
