On this day, 32 years ago, January 13, 1993 (December 21, 1992, the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was signed. China Foreign Minister Qian Qichen (center) signed the convention on behalf of China. After 24 years of negotiations, the signing conference of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (referred to as the "Chemical Weapons Convention") was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on the afternoon of January 13, 1993. Foreign ministers or government representatives from more than 120 countries around the world attended the meeting, most of which signed the convention. China Foreign Minister Qian Qichen signed the convention on behalf of the China government. The Chemical Weapons Convention is by far the world's first multilateral disarmament agreement and involves a comprehensive ban on the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons with mass destruction. Therefore, the convening of the signing conference attracted widespread attention around the world. Chemical weapons, as a weapon of mass destruction, have been sought by the international community for a long time. As early as 1899 and 1907, an agreement was reached at the two "Hague Peace Conferences" to ban the use of artillery shells containing toxic substances in war. However, these early agreements were torn up in World War I. During World War I, chemical weapons were used on a large scale, causing huge casualties. Out of its hatred of chemical weapons, the international community worked hard and reached the Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous and Other Gases, and Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (the Geneva Protocol) in 1925. However, the protocol is inherently flawed and fails to effectively ban the production and stockpiling of chemical weapons, resulting in all States parties having the right to preserve chemical weapons. Many of them have also declared that they reserve the right to retaliatory use and use them by non-parties, resulting in a situation where chemical weapons are banned and not allowed to continue. The signing of the Chemical Weapons Convention has gone through 24 years of difficult negotiations. In order to reach a convention as soon as possible, the first special session of the General Assembly on Disarmament in 1978 listed the negotiation of the Chemical Weapons Convention as the most urgent task of multilateral disarmament negotiations. Since then, the international community has made many efforts. However, in the international situation at that time, relevant countries accused each other and no one was willing to fulfill their obligations to destroy their respective chemical weapons. The negotiation of the convention was difficult and made little progress. It was not until the early 1990s, when the international situation changed dramatically, that the negotiation process of the convention took a turn for the better and an agreement was finally reached. The Convention has a strict verification system, stipulating that no State party shall develop, produce, stockpile or use chemical weapons; any State possessing chemical weapons shall destroy all chemical weapons it possesses and their production facilities within 10 years; a State party shall be responsible for destroying all chemical weapons left behind on the territory of another State. Achieving these purposes of the Convention will help maintain international security and peace and completely eliminate the threat of chemical warfare. The conclusion of the Convention has brought new hope to the people of the world, and mankind has taken an important step towards the goal of a world free of chemical weapons. However, the realization of the purposes and objectives of the Convention remains an arduous task facing people around the world. Japanese gas bomb discovered in Shijiazhuang