BEIJING, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- China has honored its
commitment to international arms control and non-proliferation, says a white
paper issued here Friday by the Information Office of the State Council.
China has made sound preparations for implementing
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), says the white paper titled "China's
National Defense in 2006".
To this end, a preparatory office has been
established at the General Armaments Department of the People's Liberation Army,
the paper says.
With the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the Ministry of Health, the State Environmental Protection Administration, the
China Seismological Administration and other government departments, this office
is responsible for setting up 11 monitoring stations in China as part of the
international monitoring system, and formulating their administrative
regulations and detailed rules for the implementation of the CTBT, the paper
says.
Two primary seismological monitoring stations have
been set up in Hailar and Lanzhou, respectively, and three radionuclide stations
have been set up in Beijing, Guangzhou and Lanzhou, respectively.
The surveying of the two sites for two infrasound
stations in Beijing and Kunming has been completed, and construction is
scheduled to start soon. The China National Data Center and the Beijing
Radionuclide Laboratory have been built, and are now in trial operation.
China supports multilateral efforts aimed at
enhancing the effectiveness of the Biological Weapons Convention, says the
paper.
The paper says China honors in good faith its
obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and has promptly and
completely submitted all the annual declarations, subsequent declarations
regarding newly discovered chemical weapons abandoned by Japan in China and the
annual national programs related to protective purposes.
According to the paper, China has also received more
than 100 on-site inspections by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons.
China fully honors its obligations under the amended
Landmine Protocol to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the paper
says.
The People's Liberation Army has carried out a
general check of all the anti-personnel landmines that do not meet the standards
of the Protocol, and has destroyed several hundred thousand old landmines in a
planned way.
China has made technical modifications to usable
anti-infantry land mines in inventory to make them conform to the technical
standards of the Protocol, says the paper.
China opposes the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction and their means of delivery, says the paper, claiming that China
supports the United Nations in playing its due role in non-proliferation.