BEIJING–China called for Japan on Monday to speed up the destruction of chemical weapons left behind by the Japanese military during World War II, as the two nations started the disposal process of such weapons in northern China.
About 2 million tons of chemical weapons were abandoned in China by the Japanese military at the end of the war, most of them in the northeastern provinces of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning, according to Chinese state-run media.
Earlier in the day, China and Japan began destroying an estimated 330,000 pieces of wartime chemical weapons in Harbaling of China’s Jilin province, China’s foreign ministry said.
Commenting on the start of the disposal process in Harbaling, China’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, said Beijing and Tokyo “made some progress” in identifying and destroying the wartime chemical weapons in China, “But, the progress is still lagging far behind the plan set by China and Japan.”
“The Chinese side asks the Japanese side to increase its input of both personnel and materials in this regard and accelerate the destruction work of chemical weapons left by Japan in China,” Hua said. (Yonhap)
