The Communist Party of China (CPC) has urged its officials to take the lead in promoting good values among ordinary citizens, according to a guideline.

According to the guideline, issued by the Central Commission for Guiding Ethic and Cultural Progress, CPC officials, especially leading officials, should practise the core values of socialism and practice a disciplined work style.

Ideological, patriotism and moral education among CPC members should be advanced, it said.

It was also suggested that a recording system should be established and rule of law improved.

A hospital in Henan province where a patient killed three people with a chopstick has been closed to allow for an investigation into its standards.

The man, identified as Yang, attacked four women at the privately run Da Zhong Hospital after breaking free of his restraints on Feb 24, according to a statement from the Luoning county government on Tuesday.

All of the victims were patients. One of the women died at the scene, while two others died in hospital from their injuries.

The mental health hospital is “suspected of chaotic management” and has been closed while an investigation team looks into the attack, the statement said. It added that two county health officials in charge of supervising local hospitals have been dismissed.

“The county’s public security authority has placed Yang under criminal coercive measures and a thorough investigation is ongoing,” the government said without elaborating. Coercive measures can include detention and 24-hour monitoring.

The killings, first reported on Saturday by The Paper, a news website based in Shanghai, happened on the night Yang was admitted to the hospital.

“Yang is a schizophrenic,” The Paper quoted an anonymous source at the hospital as saying. “He looked potentially dangerous during a health check after he was admitted, so we treated him as a priority patient. We asked his relatives to look after him and assigned a member of our staff to regularly observe him.”

Yang refused to take medicine or meals, “and we had to fasten him to his bed with restraints”, the source said.

On Tuesday, nine minutes of footage from a surveillance camera at the hospital that captured parts of the attack began to spread on social media.

In the video, a man believed to be Yang is lying on a hospital bed and appears to free his hands from restraints at 8:21 pm. Seven minutes later, he picks up a chopstick from a nearby table and walks off-camera into another room shared by two of the victims.

He then returns to the room about 30 seconds later and is seen stabbing two other women in the head with the chopstick.

According to The Paper, the last time a staff member checked on Yang was at about 5:30 pm, even though the hospital said such checks were carried out every half hour.

A group from Japan visits three Chinese women in Harbin on Tuesday who raised children abandoned by Japanese families after World War II. Three Japanese visitors had been among those children, but none had been raised by the women. [Photo by Liu Yang/China Daily]

A group from Japan mourned victims of Japan’s invasion and occupation of northeastern China before and during World War II and called on their leaders to visit China to apologize for war crimes on Tuesday.

The group of 41 was organized by people abandoned as children in China by Japanese families at the end of the war, and included three of them who had returned to Japan. The visit took place on Qingming Festival, the most important occasion for Chinese to honor the dead.

They visited Unit 731 Museum in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang Province, and mourned the more than 3,000 people tortured and killed there. Unit 731 was the Japanese army’s germ warfare division, which engaged in experiments on humans.

“It’s horrifying to see some of the items on display. Some of them were beyond what I could bear to see,” said Nakajima Yohachi, who helped organize the visit.

More than 4,000 Japanese children were adopted in China after World War II, according to media reports. Most have gone back to Japan.

Nakajima, 75, moved to Heilongjiang in 1942 with his family but was abandoned in 1945. He returned to Japan in 1958. He said he wouldn’t have survived if it were not for his Chinese parents.

The left-behind children also met with three of the adoptive mothers and gave them gifts. The children they adopted were not in the group.

“Many Japanese are deceived as the history is either distorted or understated in Japanese textbooks,” Nakajima said. “We volunteered to come with our own money. We are all peace lovers. We hope Japanese people will gain more knowledge of history, and we also hope there will be no war anymore.

“I think Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should come to China to apologize for the atrocities and reflect on history. If he doesn’t come, many Japanese like me will feel sorry for that,” he added.

Japanese dancer Yasuda Yuka, 34, said the atrocities were beyond her imagination.

“I am angry and sad as there are few records in Japanese textbooks about this history. Many young Japanese don’t know history well and many even think it’s dangerous to come to China,” she said.

Six of those abandoned who still live in China accompanied the group. Gao Fengqin, 74, was adopted after her father was killed in the war when she was 5, but she still couldn’t go back to Japan, which does not recognize her identity. “I am looking forward to going back to hunt for my roots,” she said. “But forever, China is my home.”

China is the largest exporter of military drones today, and it is ready to place a new model on the international market.

The TYW-1, developed by Beihang University in Beijing, one of China’s top institutes for science and technology, is an unmanned aircraft for reconnaissance and combat based on the BZK-005 high-altitude, long-range reconnaissance drone, which the university also developed.

The BZK-005 is widely used by the People’s Liberation Army and has performed many operations, foreign media have reported.

The drone is to make its maiden flight in September and will be placed on the international market in 2018, according to Wang Jianping, deputy general manager and chief designer at Beihang Unmanned Aircraft System Technology.

The firm was set up by Beihang University, formerly known as Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, to develop and market drones.

“We aim to tap the markets in neighboring nations, as well as in Southeast Asia and the Middle East,” Wang said in an exclusive interview.

This would be the first time a Chinese university sells large unmanned combat aircraft on the international market. Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, has sold small, unarmed military drones to foreign buyers.

The best-known Chinese military drones are the Wing Loong family, made by Aviation Industry Corp of China, and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp’s CH series.

CH drones have been sold to military users in more than 10 countries, while the Wing Loong II, which made its maiden flight in late February, has received the largest contract ever for a Chinese drone made for export.

Though facing competition, Wang said he has confidence in the TYW-1 because it is based on the BZK-005, which has proved itself with an outstanding service record.

“It’s fair to say the BZK-005 is the best aerodynamic design in China, as it has the best lift-to-drag ratio of the drones of its kind,” he said. Lift-to-drag ratio is a key indicator of an aircraft’s capability.

“Taking advantage of the good design of the BZK-005, the TYW-1 will be able to fly for about 40 hours. With a maximum takeoff weight of 1,500kilograms, it will be capable of carrying six missiles or bombs with a total weight of 300 kg.”

Another edge of the TYW-1 is its high level of automation. Wang said the drone can autonomously take off and land, and will be able to track a target and strike without manual control.

“It’s very easy to learn how to operate this drone. It will take only a month to train an operator,” he said.

The TYW-1 also will be an open and modular platform, which means it can use equipment and weapons developed not only by Chinese companies, but also by other nations, he added.

Wang Ya’nan, editor-in-chief of Aerospace Knowledge, said the TYW-1 will have bright market prospects for two key reasons.

“First, its predecessor, the BZK-005, has a good reputation in this field through its performance in actual operations,” he said. “Second, the drone’s modular design will give users a wide range of options when it comes to the procurement of equipment and weapons, enabling them to choose the most suitable products.

“In addition, its long endurance in the sky will be attractive to nations that must monitor vast territorial waters.”