Saturday, October 18, 2003 Posted: 11:39
PM EDT (0339 GMT)
BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- Japan has agreed to pay China 300 million yen ($2.7 million) to help resolve a row over injuries caused in August by chemical weapons Japan left behind in China after World War Two, China's Foreign Ministry has said.
But Beijing continued to press Tokyo to speed up disposal of caches of deadly gases still buried underground in parts of northern China.
"China demands that Japan ... carry out as soon as possible its commitment to prevent similar incidents from occurring, and speed up the process of destroying chemical weapons abandoned in China by the invading Japanese army," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said in a statement on the ministry's Web site Sunday.
A toxic leak killed one man and injured 42 others in August after five canisters of mustard gas were unearthed at a construction site in the northeastern city of Qiqihaer.
The Foreign Ministry said Japan's government had decided to pay 300 million yen in compensation for damage but did not specify where the money would go.
"The incident severely harmed the Chinese people's personal safety and national feelings, and no sum of money can compensate for it," Zhang added.
Painful memories of the Japanese wartime occupation have long cast a shadow over relations between the two Asian economic giants.
Earlier this month, the Foreign Ministry summoned Japan's ambassador to complain that Tokyo had been slow in clearing up the chemical weapons, which China says have injured some 2,000 people in recent decades.