Standing before a giant picture of a Chinese victim of Japan's chemical weapons, Zhong Jiang, in his early 40s, is telling his own story to a group of teenagers.

The man in the picture is Zhong Jiang himself, who was seriously hurt when mustard gas leaked in 1982 from chemical weapons left in China by Japanese troops during World War II.

On Wednesday, Zhong's picture was put on display at an exhibition exposing Japan's crimes in its chemical warfare in China. Besides this picture, 150 more pictures and over 10 historical relics such as chemical weapon shells are also on show.

These are all offered as evidence that during World War II, and even after the war, the chemical weapons made by Japan have brought great harm and threat to the lives of Chinese people and their living environment.

This exhibition, opened on the 58th anniversary of China's victory in the war against the intrusion of Japanese troops, shows that history can not be forgotten by the Chinese people, said Tang Zhongnan, head of the China Association for the Study of Japanese history.

Tang noted that the chemical weapons leak this year on Aug. 4 in Qiqihar City of northeast China, has again aroused great concern among the Chinese people for Japan's abandoned chemical weapons in China.

Exhibition materials show that in the eight years of war from 1937-1945, the Japanese troops more than 2,000 times used chemical weapons in China, with the casualties among Chinese soldiers and common people hitting nearly 100,000.

When that war ended, approximately two million chemical cannonballs and 100 tons of toxic chemicals were left by the Japanese troops in dozens of Chinese provinces.

Gao Zongze, president of the All-China Lawyers Association, released a joint statement issued by several Chinese non-governmental organizations, demanding the Japanese government shoulder its due responsibility and deal with problems arising from the abandoned chemical weapons in China as soon as possible.

All these pictures and historical relics will be on show from September to November at the Memorial Hall of the War of Resistance to Japanese Aggression, which is located beside the Lugou Bridge (Marco Polo Bridge)  in Wanping City, west of Beijing.

(Xinhua News Agency September 3, 2003)