杏吧原创

JAPAN admitted last week that 15 000 old shells discovered on a building site
in Nanjing, China, in February are chemical weapons that it left behind after
the Second World War. They bring to two million the number of Japanese drums and
munitions filled with chemical agents such as mustard gas that China says it has
found.

Under the Chemical Weapons Convention, Japan must destroy all its lefover
weapons by 2007. But China says Japan is 鈥渓agging behind鈥�. Li Yongwu, head of
the Chinese delegation, said at a CWC meeting in The Hague last week that old
Japanese chemical weapons are a threat to China鈥檚 health and environment.

Japanese shells left behind in China are filled with phosgene, mustard gas
and lewisite, chemicals dating from the First World War. The shells in Nanjing
are in a built-up area near the Yangtze River, where they may pose a serious
pollution risk.

Last July, the two countries agreed to destroy the chemicals on Chinese soil,
but progress has been too slow for the Chinese. 鈥淛apan has not even filed a plan
for destroying these abandoned weapons, or said what technology it will use,鈥�
says a spokesman for the Chinese delegation in The Hague. 鈥淲e urge them to speed
耻辫.鈥�

鈥淚t will not be easy to destroy them all by 2007,鈥� admits Akio Suda, head of
Japan鈥檚 special office for abandoned chemical weapons. He says although there is
no formal plan for the programme, Japan is looking at several alternative
technologies for destroying the chemicals, and will start building its first
destruction facility in China in September.

The usual way to get rid of chemical agents is to incinerate them. But they
will first have to be laboriously removed from the shells, and burning must be
carefully controlled to prevent pollution. Japan has agreed to pay.