China welcomes int'l assessment of documents about U.S. biological military activities

China on Wednesday welcomed any global initiative within appropriate frameworks to assess the discovered documents related to U.S. biological military activities.

"Recently, the Russian Federation has published quite a number of documents related to biological military activities of the United States, which has caused great concern of international community," Dai Bing, China's deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting on biological security.

"China welcomes the international community to assess the discovered documents within appropriate frameworks including the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and the UN, and hear the clarifications from the relevant country in a fair and impartial manner," said Dai.

The envoy said that the relevant country should take a responsible approach and offer timely and comprehensive clarifications on its biological activities to remove the doubts of the international community.

"Further enhancement of the transparency on its global biological activities is also needed," Dai noted.

Dai underscored that China has suffered from biological weapons during the Second World War and thus consistently stands for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of all weapons of mass destruction, including biological and chemical weapons.

"China firmly opposes the development, stockpiling or use of biological and chemical weapons by any country under any circumstances, and urges countries that have not done so to destroy their chemical weapons stockpiles as soon as possible," Dai noted.

"All states parties should comply with the objectives and principles of the BWC in good faith," the envoy noted.

"The current dynamics on biological security highlight the urgent need to re-launch negotiations on a verification protocol under the BWC and establish a professional, impartial and independent multilateral verification mechanism based on that," he said.

"Such a mechanism is a necessary but long-absent instrument to eliminate potential biological weapons threats and enhance the authority and effectiveness of the BWC, and its establishment must not be thwarted by any certain member state," he added.