China's domestically developed aircraft engines are capturing the limelight at the ongoing 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in the southern coastal city of Zhuhai, wowing visitors with their cutting-edge technologies and energy-efficient designs.
The exhibition kicked off in Zhuhai City of Guangdong Province on Tuesday, showcasing the latest in aircraft, spacecraft, and weaponry, along with impressive aerial performances.
Among the attention-grabbing exhibits, a number of innovative aircraft engines are demonstrating China's gains in this competitive and fast-evolving industry, spanning the gamut from fighter jet engines to those for civilian aircraft.
As an important aviation enterprise, Aero Engine Corporation of China, or AECC, is engaged in the development, production and maintenance of aircraft engines, gas turbines, and more. Its turbojet engines, turbofans, and turbo-shafts have been widely installed in various types of military and civilian aircraft.
The company's star product, the AEF1200, debuted at the event, catching eyes with its sheer size. It is the country's first self-developed high bypass ratio dual rotor turbofan engine, a highly efficient type of jet engine that uses two sets of rotating blades to compress air, with most of the air bypassing the engine core to create thrust more quietly and with better fuel efficiency. This design will help China's large airplanes fly farther on less fuel while keeping engine noise down.
AECC also displayed new engines designed for helicopters and drones, which are expected to be increasingly important in coming years.
"Our AES100 engine is an advanced turbo-shaft engine independently developed by AECC in response to the national call for the development of the low-altitude economy, which is energy-saving and environmentally friendly. It is equipped with a very useful health-monitoring system. So, its stability and reliability can also be assured. The AEP100 is a 900-kilowatt turboprop engine developed by us using a turboshaft engine. It can also be used in drones, business jets, and trainer aircraft," said Liu Jie, a staff member at AECC.
Since its launch, the event, also known as Airshow China, has been one of the top five airshows worldwide. This year, nearly 900 enterprises from 47 countries and regions are participating, with 149 of them global attendees.
China's high-tech, energy-efficient aircraft engines showcased at Zhuhai Airshow
A batch of newly declassified Soviet documents related to Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in World War II is a reminder of horrors of Japanese militarism, said an official from China's Central Archives.
Zhou Zhenfan, deputy director of archive preservation department of China's Central Archives, made the remarks in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) as the China's Central Archives released the batch of documents on Saturday.
The archive copies, which China received from Russia, include trial records of Unit 731 members, investigation reports on the unit's crimes, and internal official correspondence of Soviet authorities, covering the period running from May 11, 1939 to Dec. 25, 1950.
During World War II, the Japanese invading forces established a biological warfare network across multiple Asian countries, with Unit 731 located in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, serving as a top-secret base for biological weapons and human experiments.
At least 3,000 people from China, the Soviet Union and other countries and regions were used in human experiments conducted by Unit 731.
Zhou said that the archives have provided concrete historical evidence of Japan's biological warfare crimes in China.
"The evidence chain provided by this batch of archives is comprehensive and interlocking, offering full testimony regarding the organizational structure, production capacity, crimes, and harm to humanity of the entire Unit 731. The chain of evidence is interconnected, forming what can be described as irrefutable proof, leaving no room for denial," said Zhou.
Zhou cited one example from the archives that best showed the severity of these atrocities.
"The archives reveal that two successive heads of the production department of Unit 731 -- Kiyoshi Kawashima and Tomio Karasawa -- both detailed the unit's monthly bacterial production capacity. This clearly indicates that under permissive conditions, they were fully capable of mass-producing bacterial weapons," said Zhou.
According to the archives, between 1940 and 1942, Unit 731 conducted a series of field expeditions testing the deployment of lethal pathogens. Experiments involving the spread of the plague bacillus produced what the unit described as "complete results" in central China.
The testimonies reveal that in the summer of 1941, multiple aircraft from Unit 731 carried out reconnaissance missions near Dongting Lake in Changde in south central China's Hunan Province. They dropped fleas infected with the plague bacillus. The operation was intended to disrupt Chinese military supply and transport lines, as Changde was a critical strategic hub along those routes.
"Kiyoshi Kawashima mentioned that Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, told him that he had read a Chinese publication describing the symptoms of Chinese victims affected by biological weapons. Ishii was reportedly very pleased, believing that the biological weapons had achieved the intended effects and that their large-scale use was feasible," said Zhou.
Zhou highlighted the great significance of the archives in understanding the impact of Japanese militarism on China and other nations and called on people to remember history and cherish peace.
"These archives play a unique and significant role in helping China and the world understand the atrocities committed by Japan during World War II against China and other nations. They expose the evil nature of Japanese militarism, serve as a stark reminder of the tragedies wrought by war crimes, and urge us to remember history and cherish peace," said Zhou.
Unit 731 archives reminds horrors of Japanese militarism, calls to cherish peace: official
