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Japan to scrap chemical arms left in China
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-06 09:31
Japan wants to quickly scrap chemical weapons left behind in China by
Japanese forces during World War II, but has made no decision on how much to
spend for the project, the top government spokesman said on Monday.
China has complained that Japan has been slow in clearing up about 2 million
chemical weapons buried or discarded by retreating Japanese troops after the war
ended in 1945. China says some 2,000 Chinese have been harmed by such weapons.
Japanese Imperial Army soldiers about to
behead a Chinese man in Nanjing during their occuption of the
city.[AFP/File] | "We want to carry out disposals
as quickly as possible while keeping in mind (a target date of) 2007," Japanese
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference.
Japan is
required to dispose of chemical weapons left in China by 2007 under an
international treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention. Japanese studies have
placed the number of such shells at about 700,000.
In 1999, Japan promised to provide funding, technology, manpower, facilities
or other assets needed to scrap the weapons.
According to a Nihon Keizai Shimbun report, Japan will spend more than 200
billion yen (1.9 billion dollars) building a chemical weapons disposal center in
China to process Japanese weapons left there after World War II.
The chemical weapons recovery and disposal facilities will be built in the
Haerbaling district of Jilin province, where most of Japan's abandoned chemical
weapons are believed to be buried, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said.
The project is expected to be the largest overseas endeavor ever to be
undertaken by the Japanese government, it said, without citing sources.
The cost of the project may increase further if the disposal process takes
longer than expected, it said.
Japan and China will sign a special accord this summer on the initiative, the
newspaper said.
The accord is expected to allow foreign companies that are not eligible to
take part in large-scale projects under Chinese law to work on the disposal as
long as they receive approval from the Japanese government, the newspaper said.
Foreign companies working on the project will also receive preferential
treatment in tariffs on materials imported for the initiative, as well as in
taxes on project-related deals in China, the newspaper said.
The Japanese government is expected to conduct an international bidding
process for selecting construction companies for the project within the year, it
said.
Japan estimates its forces abandoned more than 700,000 chemical weapons in
China during the war, although Chinese experts say as many as two million exist
-- the world's largest stockpile of abandoned chemical arms.
Some 90 percent of abandoned chemical weapons, including mustard gas, a
highly poisonous blistering agent, are buried in Haerbaling and experts fear
chemical agents from the weapons may have polluted the soil in the area.
Under the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, Japan has until 2007 to destroy all
of the chemical weapons its troops left in China.
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