Japan began on Tuesday to destroy chemical weapons left over in China from its brutal World War II invasion, a move mandated by its international treaty obligations, state press said.
Hideo Hiraoka, vice minister of Japan's cabinet office, announced the beginning of the disposal of thousands of left-over weapons at a ceremony in east China's Nanjing city, Xinhua news agency said.
'Today's move marks a new phase in the disposal of abandoned chemical weapons in China, in which the work has shifted from excavation and recovery to destruction,' the report quoted Hiraoka as saying.
Tokyo and Beijing have agreed that up to 400,000 chemical weapons were left in China as Japan surrendered and withdrew although the figure has long been the subject of debate.
Beijing has been pressing Japan to work faster on the issue. Over 2,000 Chinese citizens have been injured or killed by leftover Japanese chemical munitions since the end of the war, Xinhua said earlier.
Such mishaps invariably lead to a resurgence of anti-Japanese sentiment in China, where lingering anger over Japan's wartime past routinely sours relations.
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Asia/Story/STIStory_573564.html
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