US slammed for breaking bioweapons protocol

In a rare joint statement made at the United Nations, foreign ministers from China and Russia criticized Washington's role in undermining the Biological Weapons Convention and its obstruction of international checks and oversight of its bio-labs around the world.

Enacted in 1975, the Convention prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpiling and use of biological weapons.

However, over 200 US biological laboratories are deployed outside its national territory, which "function in an opaque and nontransparent manner", said the China-Russia joint statement issued on Thursday.

Beijing and Moscow stated that the US and its allies' overseas military biological activities "cause serious concerns and questions among the international community" over US compliance with the Convention.

"Such activities pose serious risks for the national security of the Russian Federation and China, and are detrimental to the security of relevant regions," the statement said.

Also, the US and its allies "do not provide any meaningful information on those military biological activities that could allay the concerns of the international community", it added.

Geng Shuang, China's deputy permanent representative to the UN, read the statement on Thursday in New York when addressing the general debate of the UN General Assembly's First Committee.

China and Russia urge the United States and its allies "to act in an open, transparent and responsible manner by informing properly on its military biological activities carried out overseas and on their national territory", Geng said.

"This is the first time" Beijing and Moscow made a joint statement of this kind concerning the Convention, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

This "not only reflects the high level of comprehensive strategic cooperation between China and Russia in the new era, but also shows the firm determination and responsible attitude of the two countries for championing global biosafety and multilateralism," Zhao told reporters in Beijing.

The Thursday statement also held Washington accountable for frustrating and obstructing the negotiation and adoption of an expected legally binding protocol to the Convention.

The protocol had been expected to introduce an effective verification mechanism to ensure all contracting parties are in compliance with the landmark Convention.

In 2001, the US disregarded the overwhelming majority of contracting parties and became the only country to withdraw from the process of the protocol's negotiation, leading to the failure of resuming the process.

Prior to Washington's sole objection to the protocol's negotiation in 2001, the Convention's signatories "had already embarked on rounds of negotiations" and formulated detailed measures for verifying bioweapons, said Guo Xiaobing, a senior researcher on arms control at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Given the ongoing difficulty of resuming negotiations, the Convention's verification mechanism "is still the weakest in comparison with international arms control treaties such as The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and The Chemical Weapons Convention", Guo told People's Daily newspaper on Sept 28.

In the Thursday joint statement, China and Russia warned that,"In light of rapid advances in the field of science and technology with dual-use capabilities, the risk of biological agents being used as weapons has increased."

Zhao, the ministry spokesman, said Beijing and Moscow will continue pushing for further substantive results in this regard at the treaty's review conference next year.

Liu Yinmeng in Los Angeles contributed to this story.