From Tokyo’s point of view, prompt disposal of the weapons is essential to avoid further aggravating the bitter anti-Japanese feeling that exploded into violent riots in several Chinese cities in April. Under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, Japan committed itself to finishing the work within ten years. But given the scale of the task, and because only 37,000 of the weapons have been recovered so far, it is almost certain to extend well beyond 2007.

Hiroyuki Hosoda, Japan’s chief Cabinet Secretary, said yesterday: “This is an extraordinary problem and we are taking responsibility to dispose of these weapons. We’ll try to resolve the issue as soon as possible.”

There is still disagreement over whether Japan actually used chemical weapons in action in China, but there is no question that it stockpiled huge quantities of them, mainly in Jilin, one of the provinces closest to its own mainland.

Factories in Japan produced teargas, the mustard gas Yperite, Lewisite and cyanide. The Japanese Government says that only the first was used in battle, but Chinese official sources assert that poison gas was used more than 2,000 times by the Japanese Imperial Army, killing 10,000 people and injuring 94,000.

The abandoned weapons have caused suffering ever since, killing at least 2,000 people, according to the official Chinese count. Two children were poisoned after a gas canister leaked in a river in the city of Dunhua, Jilin. Two workmen died and 42 were injured when they broke into a barrel containing chemical weapons agents while excavating at a construction site.

A group of five Chinese plaintiffs are attempting to sue the Japanese Government in Tokyo for injuries caused by the abandoned weapons.

Such accidents have also happened in Japan. In 2003, a group of construction workers developed blisters on their skin and in their throats after a power shovel at a construction site broke buried bottles. In the town of Kamisu, east of Tokyo, persistent reports of sickness among residents and the deaths of their pets were eventually explained as the effect of buried chemical weapons that had seeped into wells.

A subsequent survey suggested that there may be as many as 138 sites where chemical weapons are buried in Japan.

Bitter conflict

• The war between Japan and China lasted from 1937 to 1945
  
• Two million Japanese fought against 4.3 million Chinese troops and an estimated 1.3 million Communist guerrillas
  
• An estimated 1.3million Chinese troops and 9 million civilians died in the conflict. Japan lost 1.1 million people

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