China's Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs Fu Cong said Japan should destruct chemical weapons it abandoned in China at the first committee of the UN general assembly in New York on Oct. 22, 2015.

Fu made a statement at the Thematic Discussion on Chemical and Biological Weapons.

He pointed out that during Japan’s aggression against China from 1931 to 1945, the Japanese army built many poisonous gas factories and chemical weapon assembly plants in many Chinese cities including Dunhua, Hailar, Taiyuan, Yichang, Jinan, Nanjing, Hankou and Guangzhou. According to incomplete statistics, the Japanese army indiscriminately used chemical weapons for more than 1,131 times in China, causing huge civilian casualties.

He also pointed out that the huge amount of Japanese Abandoned Chemical Weapons (ACWs) on Chinese soil is still threatening people’s lives and health, as well as environmental security. So far, only around 50,000 Japanese ACW items have been retrieved safely, 38,000 of which were destroyed, he added.

Fu said that the destruction of chemical weapons abandoned in China is a binding international obligation under the Chemical Weapon Convention and China urges Japan to decontaminate all the affected land in China as soon as possible.