The Chinese government has always stood for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of chemical weapons. China signed the CWC in January 1993, ratified the convention in December 1996 and deposited the instruments of ratification on April 25, 1997, thus becoming an original signatory state to the CWC. China supports the purpose and goals of the CWC, and advocates that chemical weapons and facilities for their production should be destroyed as soon as possible, in accordance with the related provisions in the CWC. Meanwhile, China holds that the convention should promote international economic, trade, and scientific and technological exchanges in the field of chemical industry, ensuring that chemical industry technology truly benefits mankind.

China has been active and conscientious in fulfilling the obligations stipulated in the CWC. It delivered the initial declaration and annual declaration in time and in their entirety and has accepted inspections by the convention. It has also participated in every one of the convention's executive council meetings and the two conferences of states parties.

China has been a victim of chemical weapons. Large quantities of chemical weapons abandoned by Japanese aggressor troops are found in China to this day, which still threaten the lives and property of the local people and the environment in which they live. In view of this, China demands that, in keeping with the stipulations of the convention, any country that has left chemical weapons in another country destroy, as soon as possible, such weapons wholly and thoroughly.

China advocates the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of biological weapons. It opposes the production, development and stockpiling of biological weapons by any country, and the proliferation of such weapons and related technology in any form by any country. In November 1984 China acceded to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction (BWC). As a state party to the BWC, China has fully and conscientiously fulfilled its obligations under the convention. Since 1987 China has, year after year, reported to the United Nations on convention-related information and data concerning confidence-building measures, in accordance with the decisions of the Review Conferences of the BWC.

Having suffered grievously from biological weapons attacks in the past, China supports work that helps comprehensively to strengthen the effectiveness of the convention. It has actively participated in the work of drawing up a Protocol of the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to the BWC established in 1994, and has made contributions to the progress of the negotiations on the Protocol. China holds, in view of the complexity of the problems relating to the verification mechanism, that every country should, in a down-to-earth way, seek effective and feasible verification measures, and formulate concrete steps to prevent abuse of verification, and to protect the rightful commercial and security secrets of states parties. China considers that, while improving the convention's verification mechanism, international cooperation and exchanges among states parties in the sphere of bio-technology for peaceful purposes should also be strengthened.