On 12 May the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated: "The Chinese government is seriously concerned about the nuclear tests conducted by India," and that the tests "run counter to the current international trend and are not conducive to peace and stability in South Asia.".[24] The next day the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued the statement clearly stating that "it shocked and strongly condemned" the Indian nuclear tests and called for the international community to "adopt a unified stand and strongly demand that India immediate stop development of nuclear weapons".[25] China further rejected India's stated rationale of needing nuclear capabilities to counter a Chinese threat as "totally unreasonable".[25] In a meeting with Masayoshi Takemura of Democratic Party of Japan, Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Qian Qichen was quoted as saying that India's nuclear tests were a "serious matter," particularly because they were conducted in light of the fact that more than 140 countries have signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. "It is even more unacceptable that India claims to have conducted the tests to counter what it called a "China threat".[25] On 24 November 1998, the Chinese Embassy, New Delhi issued a formal statement: