Global Security Newswire

Chinese officials today pressed Japan to follow through on its pledge to recover and eliminate chemical weapons abandoned in China at the close of World War II, the Xinhua News Agency reported (see GSN, Dec. 15, 2008).

Beijing has claimed that 2 million tons of Japanese chemical munitions were left in roughly 40 locations in 15 provinces, particularly the Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces in northeast China. The two nations in 1999 signed an agreement on eliminating the weapons.

Xinhua reported last month that excavation had begun of weapons abandoned at Haerbaling in the Jilin Province. However, Tokyo has suspended the effort and cut related funding, according to the Sankei Shimbun newspaper.

"China has demanded that the Japanese side clarify the report. The Japanese side said clearly that the report does not conform to the fact, and there's no change to the government's principle to speed up the process of dealing with the chemical weapons it abandoned in China during World War II," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu (Xinhua News Agency, Jan. 23).