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 "lagging behind". 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's 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. ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.