People's Daily - August 15, 2026

"Make the underlying colors of Chinese-style modernization more vibrant"

By: 本报记者

Ecological civilization construction is a fundamental plan related to the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. A sound ecological environment is the most inclusive public welfare for the people.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Place the building of a Beautiful China in a prominent position in the construction of a strong country and the rejuvenation of the nation," and "add splendor to the mountains and rivers, making the background of Chinese-style modernization even more brilliant."
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed ecological civilization construction in a prominent position in overall work, coordinated the advancement of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and economic growth. China's ecological and environmental protection has undergone historic, transformative, and comprehensive changes. The construction of a Beautiful China has taken major steps, creating ecological miracles and green development miracles that have attracted worldwide attention.
The Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国生态环境法典》) took effect on August 15. This is a code led by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, with Chinese characteristics, reflecting the characteristics of the times, reflecting the will of the people, and being systematic, standardized, and coordinated. It safeguards the construction of a Beautiful China through the rule of law, marking the entry of China's ecological and environmental protection into the "codification" era.
In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," on the occasion of the fourth National Ecological Day on August 15, reporters from this newspaper went to the front lines to explore the new vitality emerging behind four report cards: the renewable energy system, air quality improvement, forest resource growth, and the new energy industry chain, witnessing the new picture of Beautiful China construction.

Carbon Reduction —
In the first half of the year, renewable energy generation accounted for more than 40% for the first time.
How much effect does one kilowatt-hour of green electricity have?
On the coast of the East China Sea, on tens of thousands of mu of reclaimed tidal flats, deep blue photovoltaic panel "arrays" resemble a "blue mirror sea"; beneath the "arrays," fish swim freely. Power generation above, fish farming below — harmonious coexistence.
This is the Taihan 550 MW fishery-solar complementary power generation project in Wenzhou, Zhejiang.
Wu Litao, manager of the Taihan photovoltaic power station of the Zhejiang Branch of China Three Gorges Corporation, introduced that in the nearly five years since grid connection, the project has generated an average of approximately 790 million kWh annually, which can meet the electricity needs of approximately 263,000 households. Compared with thermal power of equivalent generation, it is equivalent to saving approximately 235,000 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 650,000 tons each year.
"Currently is the peak electricity consumption period, and green electricity has played a positive role." Xi Honglei, head of the Power Dispatch and Control Center of State Grid Wenzhou Power Supply Company, said that in August of the year before last and last year, the project's grid-connected electricity was 98.5 million kWh and 103 million kWh respectively, well meeting part of the city's summer peak demand.
Carrying the sea breeze of the tidal flats and the scorching sunlight, green electricity travels northward through Wenzhou's main power grid, passing through the 500 kV Ruian substation, which connects to Wenzhou's ten-million-kilowatt offshore wind power, photovoltaics, and other renewable energy sources, effectively strengthening Zhejiang Province's power mutual assistance and guarantee capacity.
Following the grid toward the electricity consumption side. In Yongjia County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang, in the digital factory of Lixin Valve Group Co., Ltd., amid the roar of CNC machine tools, valve products are exported worldwide from here.
"The electricity we use for production is green electricity." Wang Qinai, the company's chairman, proudly displayed a green electricity certificate trading voucher. "This voucher is like a 'green passport,' helping us open up larger overseas markets. Last year, the company's foreign trade exports increased by 15% year-on-year."
Renewable energy is shaping new competitive advantages and injecting new momentum for development.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Accelerate the construction of a new energy system," "expand the application of green electricity," and "promote the high-quality development of China's new energy with greater efforts, provide safe and reliable energy security for Chinese-style modernization, and make greater contributions to jointly building a clean and beautiful world."
The earnest instructions have been translated into positive action.
Photovoltaic panels spread across "deserts, Gobi, and barren lands" into blue oceans, wind turbine "forests" stand tall on grasslands and mountain peaks, and transmission lines stretch thousands of miles surging with green momentum... Looking across China, such magnificent scenes are increasing.
In the first half of this year, new renewable energy installations accounted for more than 70%, generation accounted for more than 40% for the first time, and coal power generation accounted for less than 50% for the first time — China's energy green and low-carbon transformation achieved new breakthroughs; national green electricity trading volume increased by 6.6% year-on-year, with consumption potential further stimulated.
"Diverse green energy scenarios have taken root, making low-carbon transformation a distinctive feature of Qingdao's opening-up, and clean energy has become a new business card for 'Qingdao Manufacturing' entering the international market." Zhou Lin, deputy director of the Qingdao SCO Demonstration Zone Management Committee and deputy mayor of Jiaozhou City, said that based on its own resource endowments, the demonstration zone is accelerating the pace of new energy layout. State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company provides "one-on-one" dedicated services to respond to demand in real time, fully consolidating the grid framework and ensuring the entire process of project grid connection. The Ligezhuang fishery-solar complementary project has been implemented accordingly. Part of the "green electricity" generated by water-surface photovoltaics is integrated into the local power grid to serve production and daily life, while part is directly connected to green hydrogen production facilities, achieving on-site consumption and value conversion of clean energy.
Energy green and low-carbon transformation is the key to achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality. China has built the world's largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system, cooperating with more than 100 countries and regions on green energy projects, injecting surging momentum into the global energy transition.

Pollution Reduction —
In the first half of the year, the national average PM2.5 concentration decreased by 6.6% year-on-year.
What environmental changes does a star trail photo reflect?
On a clear night, photographer Du Zhiguang came to the front of the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, aimed his camera lens at the starry sky, and set it to continuous shooting. Meteors streaked across the night sky, combining with the majestic palace architecture to present a stunning picture of the stars moving and time passing.
Du Zhiguang's journey of photographing star trails records the trajectory of Beijing's air quality improvement.
"More than 10 years ago, the sky was often gray and hazy, and it was not easy to take a star trail photo in urban Beijing." Du Zhiguang said that in those years, to shoot star trails, he often went to remote suburbs like Huairou and Miyun at night, and by the time he finished shooting and returned, it was often almost dawn.
PM2.5 source analysis, implementation of "coal-to-electricity" and "coal-to-gas" conversions, rectification of "scattered, polluted, and disorganized" enterprises, and elimination of old vehicles... Beijing has treated air pollution control as a major livelihood project, grasping it firmly and effectively. The results are evident. In the first half of this year, Beijing's PM2.5 concentration was 31.6 micrograms per cubic meter, and the ratio of days with good air quality reached 79.6%.
"In the past two years, 'Beijing Blue' has become the norm, and taking star trail photos in the urban area has become increasingly easy." Du Zhiguang has witnessed the changes brought by Beijing's air pollution control. "Now in Beijing, the sky is blue, the water is clear, and the land is green. Just take out a camera, aim at the Grand Canal or Green Heart Park, and you can shoot stunning images."
"Return blue skies, white clouds, and twinkling stars to the people," "return clear water, green banks, and fish swimming at the bottom to the people," "retain the idyllic scenery of birdsong and floral fragrance for the people"... Benefiting the people through ecology, serving the people through ecology, and governing for the people through ecology — since the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has led the people of the whole country in resolutely fighting the battle against pollution, with unprecedented solidity of measures, intensity of effort, and significance of results.
The "Ten Measures for Air," "Ten Measures for Water," and "Ten Measures for Soil" were successively issued. From eliminating backward production capacity in coal, steel, and cement, to promoting clean heating renovation in northern regions; from advancing comprehensive water environment treatment, to reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and controlling soil environmental risks... Each scientific and pragmatic measure has gathered strong momentum for sustained tackling, promoting continuous improvement of the ecological environment quality.
Since the new era, China has become the country with the fastest air quality improvement in the world. In the first half of this year, the national average PM2.5 concentration was 29.9 micrograms per cubic meter, a year-on-year decrease of 6.6%, and the average ratio of days with good air quality reached 82.8%. In the first half of the year, the proportion of Class I to III excellent surface water quality nationwide reached 87.4%, with major physical and chemical indicators of the water environment basically equivalent to those of developed countries. The safe utilization of contaminated farmland and key construction land has been effectively guaranteed, and soil environmental risks have been effectively controlled.
The sky is bluer, the water is clearer, the soil is cleaner, and the mountains and rivers of the country are more colorful.
"The egrets have returned, and Guitang River has become clear." In the computer of Liu Ke, a civilian river chief in Changsha, Hunan, comparison photos of Guitang River spanning 15 years are stored. This year, Guitang River has egrets flying gracefully, clear water, and green banks. After systematic treatment, the water quality has stably reached Class III. The "Dragon Whisker Ditch" has transformed into a national-level beautiful river and lake.
At the Fenhe Cultural and Ecological Scenic Area in Linfen, Shanxi, graceful willows and a clear stream complement each other. Citizen Liu Chengtong, jogging by the river, remarked with emotion: "Over the years, watching our Linfen's sky change from gray to blue and the river water from black to green, the environment has really changed dramatically!"
Ecological beauty around people is increasing, and the people's sense of environmental gain has been significantly enhanced. Looking to the future, the task of improving the ecological environment remains arduous. "We must fully implement precise, scientific, and law-based pollution control, improve the ecological environment quality to a higher standard, and better support high-quality development." Xu Qigong, dean of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (生态环境部), said.

Green Expansion —
The three landmark battles of the "Three-North" Project (三北工程) have completed construction tasks of 244 million mu.
How can a sea of roses lock the sand and generate gold?
"Do you know that roses can also be grown in the desert?" In Haderang Village, Aral Township, Yutian County, Xinjiang, Rukeyamu Wujiabula, head of the Hexie Desert Rose Planting Cooperative, set up her phone and began a day of live streaming. Not far away, several refrigerated trucks started up, transporting dried rose petals to the trading market.
Rukeyamu said that in November 2024, the Taklamakan Desert edge-sealing project achieved closure, and the news of the desert wearing a "green scarf" went viral, with desert roses selling better and better.
Over the years, the "Three-North" Project has added greenery and stopped desertification. Rukeyamu, who had suffered from wind and sand since childhood, returned to her hometown after graduating from university to start a business, leading villagers to increase both greenery and income. "We have developed more than 70 products, of which rose sauce sells best, with annual sales of 1,500 tons; the rose product specialty store opened in the county seat averages 10,000 yuan in sales per day." Rukeyamu told reporters that the cooperative employs 42 villagers year-round, and during peak harvesting and processing periods, it can drive 200 to 300 people to work, with each person able to earn an additional 2,500 yuan per month.
Desert roses are "blooming more and more beautifully." Last year, Yutian County's 80,000 mu of desert roses generated an output value of 237 million yuan, driving 5,441 households to increase their income, while also reducing hundreds of thousands of tons of shifting sand.
Yutian County is not the only place expanding greenery and increasing income. As the "Three-North" Project battle advances in depth, the "green scarf" of the Taklamakan Desert has expanded from a line to a large area, and a picture of green prosperity and shared wealth is continuously unfolding across the desert.
The "Three-North" region is the main battlefield for land greening. In the three years since the "Three-North" Project battle began, the three landmark campaigns have cumulatively completed construction tasks of 244 million mu. The "Green Great Wall" is advancing northward and westward at a rate of approximately 2,000 square kilometers per year, becoming a stunning stroke of ecological color in the "Thousand-Mile Rivers and Mountains Scroll."
With the world's largest area of planted forests and contributing approximately 25% of the world's new greening area... since the new era, China has become the country with the most and fastest greening.
The birth of these green miracles fundamentally stems from the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and the institutional advantage of socialism in concentrating efforts on major tasks.
"Increasing greenery means increasing advantages; planting trees means planting the future," "make the mountains and rivers of the land green, and make the people's living environment beautiful"... Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has taken the lead, participating in capital city voluntary tree-planting activities for 14 consecutive years, emphasizing the need to "continuously thicken our 'green family assets.'"
"Under the new circumstances, advancing land greening should place more emphasis on improving quality, promoting industry, and benefiting the people, achieving simultaneous management of planting and tending, joint promotion of ecology and industry, and coexistence of humans and nature." This year, General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech during the capital city voluntary tree-planting activity leads hundreds of millions of people to embark on a magnificent new green journey.
"Scientific large-scale land greening actions" have been incorporated into the Ecological Environment Code, and the "Forestry and Grassland Protection and Utilization '15th Five-Year Plan'" has been issued... In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," the whole nation is mobilized, everyone takes action, scientific greening is carried out, and the green map continues to expand.
Simultaneous management of planting and tending. In Xiong'an New Area, Hebei, the city of the future is consolidating its ecological foundation. The "Millennium Forest" prioritizes native tree species, building a stable and healthy near-natural forest community, with an intelligent monitoring network operating 24 hours a day and forest rangers conducting grid-based all-weather patrols. The quality of greening continues to improve, and this year's new greenery is growing well.
Joint promotion of ecology and industry. In Wenwu Village, Yun County, Lincang City, Yunnan, coffee is grown under macadamia nut trees, and chickens and bees are raised in the forest. The forest has become the villagers' "green savings book." Beekeeper Luo Wenying said: "Income increases by 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per year."
"Plant trees for the people, create benefits for the masses." More and more urban residents can "see green from their windows, have shade along the roads, and enter parks when going out." The vast countryside is full of birdsong and floral fragrance, and the idyllic scenery is desirable... Across the beautiful land of China, "coexistence of humans and nature" is gradually becoming a reality.

Growth —
The retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 60%.
What growth logic lies behind a new energy vehicle?
At Chery New Energy Vehicle Phase IV Factory in Yijiang District, Wuhu City, Anhui, automated assembly lines are bustling, with one complete vehicle rolling off the line every minute on average.
In the first half of this year, Chery's new energy vehicle sales increased by 32.3% year-on-year, and exports surged by 164.9% year-on-year.
Chery's new energy vehicles are thriving in both production and sales, relying on the enterprise's pursuit of advanced technology and firm green transformation, as well as strong external industrial system support.
"Our success is inseparable from the empowerment of the Yangtze River Delta's '4-hour industrial circle' and the support of the local industrial chain." Zhang Qun, head of the Supplier Management Department of Chery Automobile Procurement Center, told reporters that Shanghai's chips, Zhejiang's die-cast parts, and Jiangsu's lithium batteries allow Chery to source all required supporting components within a 4-hour drive in the Yangtze River Delta. With Chery as the leader, Wuhu City has gathered more than 2,000 upstream and downstream enterprises in the automotive and parts industry chain, forming a complete industrial chain from R&D and production to sales.
One vehicle drives one chain, one chain gathers into a cluster. Efficient collaboration with complementary advantages allows Chery to "race ahead" on the new energy vehicle track.
In the first half of this year, China's new energy vehicle production and sales both exceeded 7 million units, with exports increasing by 120% year-on-year, and the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 60% from April to June. Behind this is China's construction of the world's largest and most complete new energy industry chain, supporting the world's largest-scale and fastest new energy vehicle promotion and application.
This is a strong chain, a long chain, and a new chain, "linking" out a thriving picture of pursuing green and embracing innovation — China produces more than 80% of the world's photovoltaic modules and 70% of wind power equipment, and cumulatively reduced carbon emissions for other countries by approximately 4.1 billion tons during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. In the first half of this year, China's lithium battery export total increased by 43% year-on-year. From "following" to "leading," China's new energy vehicle production and sales have ranked first globally for 11 consecutive years...
The high-quality development of China's green industries, represented by the new energy industry chain, is closely related to the guidance of the green development concept.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of economic and social development is a key link in achieving high-quality development," and "we must adhere to the guidance of the 'dual carbon' goals and promote comprehensive green transformation."
The banner points the direction, and thought gathers strength. A profound transformation concerning development models and lifestyles is unfolding vigorously across China.
Production methods are moving toward "green."
In the Shanglinhu Celadon Cultural Heritage Park in Cixi City, Zhejiang, electric potter's wheels operate in an orderly manner, smart panels precisely set firing parameters, and celadon has achieved standardized and scaled production. State Grid Cixi Power Supply Company proactively connects with enterprises, promoting the upgrading of the celadon industry from wood kilns and coal kilns to electric kilns. The green transformation of this thousand-year intangible cultural heritage reflects the accelerating green and low-carbon transformation of China's traditional industries.
At the Zouping West Service Area on the Qingdao-Yinchuan Expressway, electric heavy trucks come and go frequently. State Grid Binzhou Power Supply Company in Shandong has installed photovoltaic, energy storage, and charging pile equipment and established a dedicated service team to support the large-scale application of new energy heavy trucks. In the first half of this year, national cumulative sales of new energy heavy trucks increased by 78.6% year-on-year.
Green energy, green production, and green transportation are flourishing. A cumulative total of 8,336 national-level green factories and 616 green industrial parks have been cultivated... In today's China, the "green content" of economic and social development continues to rise.
Lifestyles are increasingly embracing "green" as a trend.
In Hangzhou, Zhejiang, second-hand goods at an offline circular store are popular among young people; in Wuhan, Hubei, citizens record green behaviors through the "carbon inclusive" platform and redeem rewards such as public transit card recharges and scenic spot tickets... Across China, water and electricity conservation, green travel, the "Clean Plate Campaign," and waste sorting — green and low-carbon lifestyles are gradually becoming the norm.
Territorial space is based on "green."
Coordinated designation of ecological protection red lines, environmental quality bottom lines, and resource utilization upper limits has established a region-wide ecological environment sub-regional management and control system. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the water conservation capacity index within the national ecological protection red lines increased by 10.1%, the vegetation coverage index increased by 2.3%, and the protection rate of key biological species increased by 2.1%.
If humans do not fail the green mountains, the green mountains will not fail humans. The comprehensive green transformation is profoundly changing China's development trajectory, injecting an inexhaustible source of green momentum into Chinese-style modernization.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical stage for expanding and improving the quality of Beautiful China construction and achieving a fundamental improvement in the ecological environment. Let us take Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization as our guide, fully implement the Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China, seize the momentum, work hard and pragmatically, jointly paint a new picture of a Beautiful China with harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and make the background of Chinese-style modernization even more brilliant!
(Staff reporters of this newspaper: Gu Zhongyang, Li Hongmei, Kou Jiangze, Dong Siyu, Dou Hanyang, Pan Junqiang, Jiang Xuehong)

Return to Top

Promoting sustained, innovative, and high-quality economic development

By: 金社平

In the first half of this year, gross domestic product grew by 4.7% year on year, in line with the annual economic growth target. China's economy has pressed forward under pressure, moving toward innovation and optimization, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality.
　　In the second half of the year, how should economic work be carried out?
　　On July 30, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The meeting pointed out that we should "strengthen confidence, face difficulties head-on, make good use of various opportunities and advantages, and promote high-quality development to proceed steadily and far" and "promote the economy to continue developing toward innovation, optimization, and improvement, and strive for a good start to the 15th Five-Year Plan."
　　"Toward innovation," "toward optimization," "toward improvement" — through these three keywords, one can understand the direction of progress, key tasks, and development logic of China's economy in the second half of the year.
　　（一）
　　Development momentum toward innovation is a prominent highlight of China's economy at present. To promote the sustained shift of development momentum toward innovation, it is necessary to accelerate the conversion of old and new growth drivers, strengthen development impetus, and stimulate social vitality.
　　Looking through the "half-year report," a structurally significant highlight with substantial content leaps off the page: new growth drivers represented by high-end manufacturing, the intelligent economy, and modern services have contributed more than 40% to economic growth.
　　To understand the contribution rate of over 40%, one must look at the development trend behind the data.
　　First, look at export orders. The "new three items" have not lost momentum, and more innovative products are rising rapidly. In the first half of the year, exports of the "new three items" grew by 46.1% year on year; exports of integrated circuits denominated in RMB grew by 88.7% year on year; exports of surgical robots grew by 3.3 times year on year; and the total value of outbound licensing deals for innovative drugs reached approximately 110 billion US dollars... In the order books, the "innovation" content is getting higher and higher.
　　Second, look at the upgrading report card. Driven by high-end manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing, the machine tool industry is accelerating its upgrade toward high-end and intelligent directions, emerging from years of downturn. In the first half of the year, industry profits grew by 89.2% year on year.
　　It can be seen from this that the new growth drivers currently driving economic growth constitute a composite power system encompassing the rise of emerging industries, the upgrading of traditional industries, and the iteration of new business forms and new models.
　　To understand the contribution rate of over 40%, one must also look at growth resilience.
　　Calculations show that in the first half of the year, new growth drivers in the industrial sector, with a share of just over 20% of value added, contributed nearly 50% of the growth in value added of industrial enterprises above designated size. New growth drivers, with a small share, have leveraged large-scale growth.
　　In the second half of the year, China's economy remains in the critical stage of breaking through and establishing momentum in the conversion of old and new growth drivers. To achieve a good start to the 15th Five-Year Plan, it is necessary to maintain the strong momentum of new growth drivers and better stimulate their supporting and leading role in economic development.
　　Highlight key points and do a good job in scientific and technological innovation.
　　The "newness" of new growth drivers lies in the shift of growth impetus from factor-driven to innovation-driven. For new growth drivers to become sustainable and progressive growth outcomes, scientific and technological innovation is the key.
　　With an eye to the long term, it is necessary to strengthen the strategic, forward-looking, and systematic layout of basic research, and support investing early, investing small, investing long-term, and investing in hard technology. Focusing on the present, it is necessary to continue to promote breakthroughs in key core technologies in key fields such as integrated circuits, industrial mother machines, high-end instruments, and basic software — "continue to work on them persistently and keep achieving new results."
　　Grasp the key and make good use of application scenarios.
　　The seeds of technology need the soil of scenarios to take root, sprout, and grow into towering trees. To promote the deep integration of the innovation chain and the industrial chain, it is necessary to use "small scenarios" to accomplish "big undertakings."
　　It is necessary to combine an effective market with a well-functioning government, select fields with high value, high contribution, and high benefits to open up scenarios, help new technologies cross the "Darwinian sea" from the laboratory to the market, and foster more new quality productive forces through a thriving industrial ecosystem.
　　Balance overall considerations and accelerate the conversion of old and new growth drivers.
　　Economic development is a process in which old and new growth drivers are continuously connected and converted. Only with the smooth connection and conversion of old and new growth drivers can a leap in productive forces be achieved.
　　On the one hand, it is necessary to "pursue the new." Do a good job in forward-looking planning, regularly carry out research on technology foresight and potential tracks, formulate key technology lists for future industries, actively open up new tracks and new directions, and promote the growth of "experimental fields" into "bumper harvest fields."
　　On the other hand, it is necessary to "climb higher." Adhere to the principle of a unified national market, adapt to local conditions, pursue differentiated development, promote the transformation of traditional industries toward high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated development, and drive increments by revitalizing existing stock.
　　（二）
　　Economic structure toward optimization is a positive change in China's economy at present. To promote the sustained optimization of the economic structure, it is necessary to intensify efforts to expand domestic demand, optimize supply, and promote the upgrading and optimization of the demand structure and supply structure.
　　Some have noted that in the second quarter of this year, indicators such as total retail sales of consumer goods and fixed asset investment came under pressure. How should the performance of domestic demand be viewed?
　　First, look at consumption. The trend is changing. To observe China's consumption situation, one must look at it from the full caliber.
　　In the "half-year report," service retail sales grew by 5.3% year on year, 4.2 percentage points higher than goods retail sales.
　　Among sub-categorized products, sales revenue from tourism, sightseeing, and entertainment services grew by 12.0% year on year, with a growth rate outpacing many physical consumer goods categories.
　　On the expenditure side, in the first half of the year, the proportion of per capita service consumption expenditure in residents' consumption expenditure increased by 0.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year.
　　The data confirms a fact: China's consumer market is steadily moving toward a new stage where "goods and services" are equally emphasized, and service consumption has become an important engine driving consumption growth.
　　Extending the perspective, changes have long since occurred.
　　One curve is the proportion of value added of the service industry in GDP. In 2012, it was 45.5%; in 2015, 50.5%, exceeding half for the first time; in the first half of this year, 59.5%.
　　One curve is the contribution rate of the service industry to GDP. In 2012, it was 45.0%; in 2014, 49.9%; in the first half of this year, it reached 66.1%, becoming the industry with the largest contribution rate.
　　Structural changes reflect trend changes. To expand consumption, the focus of effort must change.
　　The top-level design is already clear. From April 7 to 8, the National Service Industry Conference was held in Beijing. This was the first meeting convened under the name "National Service Industry Conference."
　　General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Promote the high-quality, diversified, and convenient development of life services, cultivate more 'China Service' brands, and strive to open up a new situation of high-quality development of the service industry."
　　In the "15th Five-Year Plan" Outline for Expanding Consumption issued not long ago, among the six key tasks for promoting consumption, "promoting the quality improvement and benefit to the people of service consumption" ranks first.
　　By following the trend, optimizing supply, and innovating scenarios, we can fully tap the potential of service consumption and effectively expand domestic demand.
　　Looking again at investment, the "center of gravity" has changed. To observe China's investment situation, one must look not only at the total volume but also at the structure.
　　Observing the total volume, in the first half of the year, the total scale of fixed asset investment nationwide reached 22.6 trillion yuan, with the overall base still being enormous.
　　Observing the structure, in the first half of the year, the proportion of intellectual property product investment in fixed asset investment rose to 13.8%, already approaching the proportion of real estate development investment.
　　Not only that, investment in emerging fields is accelerating to fill the gap. In the first half of the year, investment in the integrated circuit manufacturing industry, the electronic special materials manufacturing industry, and the lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry grew by 8.8%, 10%, and 24.4%, respectively.
　　This shows that the "center of gravity" of investment is undergoing profound changes — it is not only directed toward land, equipment, and facilities, but also toward the "scientific and technological innovation brain," with investment in things and investment in people being closely integrated.
　　To stabilize investment, it is necessary to follow the new trend. It is necessary to focus on building the "foundation," coordinately advancing the construction of 109 major projects and the "six networks" plan, strengthening multi-network coordination and deep coupling, and empowering the modern industrial system; it is also necessary to focus on investing in people, anchoring on key points, concentrating efforts, stimulating people's development potential, and helping improve productivity and economic growth.
　　（三）
　　Fundamentals toward improvement is a long-term trend of China's economy. To promote the sustained improvement of China's economy, it is necessary to make good use of various opportunities and advantages, effectively respond to various external shocks and internal difficulties, and promote high-quality development to proceed steadily and far.
　　Where does the confidence in the fundamentals improving come from?
　　In the first half of the year, China's GDP was 69,570.4 billion yuan, with an increment of 3.6 trillion yuan, the highest for the same period in the past five years.
　　In vertical comparison, 3.6 trillion yuan is approximately the economic output of Jiangxi province for the entire year last year, equivalent to creating a new industrial province in half a year.
　　Looking back at the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's cumulative economic increment exceeded 36 trillion yuan, equivalent to the annual economic output of the world's third-largest economy. Now, at the start of the "15th Five-Year Plan," an increment of 3.6 trillion yuan is steady and valuable.
　　Looking at the global picture, 3.6 trillion yuan is equivalent to the annual economic output of many medium-sized economies.
　　China remains the "stabilizer" of the global economy. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, while lowering their forecasts for world economic growth this year, have both raised their forecasts for China's economic growth, casting a "vote of confidence" in China's economy.
　　In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," China's economy has progressed steadily with its hard power continuously growing. The proportion of manufacturing value added in GDP has risen to 26.2%, and the network infrastructure is the largest in scale and most extensive in coverage in the world. China's economy possesses a solid foundation and strong support for withstanding risks and proceeding steadily and far.
　　It cannot be denied that China's economic development does currently face some difficulties and challenges. But it must be recognized even more that China's economy has a stable foundation, multiple advantages, strong resilience, and great potential, and that the supporting conditions and basic trend of long-term improvement have not changed. These problems in development and pains in transformation can be gradually overcome and resolved through effort.
　　How to provide protection?
　　Looking at the big picture, macro policies should exert force and improve effectiveness.
　　Effective macro policies and precise macro regulation are important means of protecting China's economy as it proceeds steadily and far.
　　Strengthen counter-cyclical adjustment, continue to implement a more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy; fully leverage the effectiveness of various existing stock policies, promptly plan and introduce pragmatic and effective incremental policies, and strengthen the consistency of macro policy orientations... By responding to changes in the external situation with macro governance, the trend of economic stability and improvement will be consolidated and expanded.
　　Starting from the small details, respond promptly to enterprise concerns.
　　Enterprises are the basic cells of the national economy, and a good business environment is the fertile soil for the healthy development of enterprises. To promote the sustained development of the economy toward innovation, optimization, and improvement, it is necessary to respond promptly to enterprise concerns, continuously optimize the business environment, and continuously stimulate the vitality of micro-level entities.
　　How to break "involution-style" competition? A negative list for local fiscal subsidies, a list of matters hindering the construction of a unified national market, regulations on the construction of a unified national market, a list of matters encouraged and prohibited in local government investment promotion... Make good use of the legal "toolbox," wield the regulatory "combined punches," comprehensively rectify "involution-style" competition, and promote a healthier and more orderly market ecology.
　　How to clear overdue payments? Arrange local government special bond quotas to support debt clearance, implement the "National Basic List of Measures for Dishonesty Punishment (2026 Edition)," and incorporate the clearance of overdue payments owed to enterprises into the performance assessment of local governments... A systematic "combined punch" is based on normalizing the resolution of the problem of overdue payments to enterprises.
　　Devise new policies and take practical measures to create a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized, which will provide better conditions for the innovative development of various enterprises.
　　One should take a long-term view.
　　Let us unify our thoughts and actions with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches and the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, strengthen confidence, face difficulties head-on, promote high-quality development to proceed steadily and far, and strive for a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan."

Return to Top

Lei Feng's spirit passed down from generation to generation (Remembering the original aspiration and mission, forging ahead on the road to rejuvenation)

By: 本报记者 刘佳华

When people mention Zhang Xue, a villager from Liandao Village, Hebei Township, Shuncheng District, Fushun City, Liaoning Province, those around her all give her a thumbs-up — "the good deeds she has done are too many to tell." In July, when rainstorms hit Fushun, Zhang Xue took out agricultural products from her own stall and cooked pork bone soup, stewed chicken, and corn porridge, delivering meals for three consecutive days to more than 50 households of villagers at the resettlement site. She was named one of Fushun's 19th "People's Lei Feng" awardees. Fushun is Lei Feng's second hometown and the birthplace of the Lei Feng spirit. In September 2018, when General Secretary Xi Jinping visited the Lei Feng Memorial Hall in Fushun, he stressed: "We must learn both the spirit of Lei Feng and the way Lei Feng did things, turning lofty ideals, beliefs, and moral qualities into concrete actions, embodied in ordinary work and daily life, making our due contributions and passing on the Lei Feng spirit from generation to generation." Bearing in mind these earnest instructions, Fushun has actively expanded the content of activities to learn from Lei Feng, continuously promoting such activities to be integrated into daily life and made routine, so that the Lei Feng spirit radiates even more brilliant light in the new era. The Lei Feng spirit grows ever more enduring through inheritance. "The older generation of firefighters at our fire rescue station once fought alongside Lei Feng," said Zhu Zhaohui, a firefighter at the Lei Feng Fire Rescue Station in Wanghua District. "Having taken over the baton, we must also carry forward the Lei Feng spirit." In July, in the face of the rainstorm, this team swiftly deployed, advancing more than 200 meters through chest-deep water and setting up rope bridges to evacuate trapped villagers. More than 30 "Lei Feng-named" units and over 20 Lei Feng-themed exhibition halls and rooms... In recent years, Fushun has made great efforts to build a spiritual home and practical carriers for learning from Lei Feng. At the Lei Feng Police Station, police officers "take up Lei Feng's gun and guard the four directions for the people"; at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Fushun Lei Feng Sub-branch, the "Lei Feng passbook" continues to accumulate donations for an unbroken relay of love; at Lei Feng Primary School, the "three treasures" Lei Feng left to the students — the sewing kit, the savings box, and the thrift box — have been upgraded into a "moral bank," a "love supermarket," and a "soul station." "All of China, everywhere, is my family!" At the center of the stage, under the spotlight, Party-member cadres in training, dressed in military uniforms, performed the scene of Lei Feng going to the commune to make a donation... This large-scale situational Party lecture is a signature course of the Liaoning Lei Feng Cadre Academy, located in Fushun. In recent years, the academy's "Lei Feng Spirit +" curriculum system has trained more than 380,000 trainees from across the country. The Lei Feng Memorial Hall has been upgraded and renovated; seven mobile exhibition halls have been established nationwide; an online digital exhibition hall and a virtual reality exhibition hall have been launched, cumulatively receiving more than 76 million visits from over 60 countries and regions; "Lei Feng +" themed study activities have been held, such as the "Retracing Lei Feng's Road, Youth Serving the Nation" summer college-student social practice program, with more than 200,000 teachers and students from over 300 schools participating... Fushun has taken multiple measures to enable the Lei Feng spirit to transcend time and space and permeate people's hearts. The Lei Feng spirit is passed down from generation to generation through practical work. The Lei Feng Community of Heping Sub-district, Wanghua District, is located on the original site of the barracks of the company Lei Feng served in during his lifetime. "Forty percent of the community's residents are elderly. We took the lead in exploring the establishment of a 'Lei Feng Agency Station,' providing residents with 67 services free of charge, including bill payment on their behalf," said Wu Zhenhua, the community Party Committee secretary. Today, the "Lei Feng Agency Station" model has been promoted throughout Fushun, with more than 1,300 stations built and over 10,000 agents active on the front lines of urban and rural areas. Fushun has cumulatively cultivated more than 900 advanced collectives and more than 1,000 advanced individuals in learning from Lei Feng; the "People's Lei Feng" selection has been held for 20 consecutive years, with a total of 205 individuals and 70 teams receiving the honor. Lei Feng came from the people, and among the people there are Lei Fengs. The story of Lei Feng is being continued by more and more people. In the Lei Feng Memorial Hall, beside the exhibition panel of Lei Feng's Diary, docent Wang Yichen tells the story of Jin Chenglong, a "Liaoning-era Model of the Times" — a 26-year-old college student from Fushun who died this January while rescuing people who had fallen into the water. Everyone admires Lei Feng, everyone learns from Lei Feng, and everyone strives to be a Lei Feng. Fushun has more than 1,700 volunteer service teams learning from Lei Feng and more than 250,000 volunteers, with over 10,000 volunteer service projects created and more than 400 high-quality service projects launched. Here, the Lei Feng spirit is passed down from generation to generation.

Return to Top

Photo Report

During the summer vacation, people have been making their way into cultural venues such as libraries and museums, savoring the fragrance of books, broadening their knowledge, and enriching their experiences.

Return to Top

Express delivery volume up 4.8% year on year

Beijing, August 14 (Reporter Han Xin) — The reporter learned from the State Post Bureau (国家邮政局): In the first seven months of this year, China's express delivery business volume cumulatively completed 117.47 billion pieces, a year-on-year increase of 4.8%; express delivery business revenue cumulatively completed 901.77 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%.

Regional development has become more balanced. In the first seven months, the proportions of express delivery business revenue in the eastern, central, and western regions were 73.7%, 15.6%, and 10.7% respectively, and the proportions of express delivery business volume were 68.8%, 20.8%, and 10.4% respectively. Compared with the same period last year, the proportion of express delivery business revenue in the central region rose by 0.1 percentage points, and the proportion of express delivery business volume rose by 1.4 percentage points; the proportion of express delivery business revenue in the western region rose by 0.2 percentage points, and the proportion of express delivery business volume rose by 1.3 percentage points.

Service quality and efficiency have steadily improved. In July, the service quality index was 566.8, a slight year-on-year increase. Looking at sub-indicators, the public satisfaction with express delivery services was 85.3 points, an increase of 0.1 points year-on-year. The 72-hour timely delivery rate in key regions was 86.7%, an increase of 0.4 percentage points year-on-year.

Return to Top

Number of EV charging facilities up 43.2% year on year

Our newspaper, Beijing, August 14 (Reporter Wang Yunshan (王云杉)) — The reporter learned from the National Energy Administration (国家能源局): As of the end of June, the total number of electric vehicle charging infrastructure (charging guns) in China reached 23.057 million, a year-on-year increase of 43.2%.

Among them, public charging facilities (charging guns) numbered 5.009 million, a year-on-year increase of 22.3%, with total rated power reaching 247 million kilowatts and an average power per charging gun of approximately 49.35 kilowatts; private charging facilities (charging guns) numbered 18.048 million, a year-on-year increase of 50.4%, with reported installed electricity capacity reaching 155 million kilovolt-amperes.

In the first half of this year, the electric vehicle charging network developed rapidly, and service capacity improved significantly. The construction of high-power charging facilities achieved notable results; the layout of county and township charging networks continued to be optimized. As of the end of June, the coverage rate of county-level charging facilities had risen to 98.61%, the county and township charging network was being woven more densely at an accelerated pace, and the capacity for guaranteeing charging services in township areas was steadily strengthened.

Return to Top

Meticulous budgeting: manage water like money (New economic perspectives)

By: 本报记者 张 文

In Shamiao Village (沙庙村), Daba Town (大坝镇), Qingtongxia City (青铜峡市), Wuzhong City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the ten-plus mu of corn on villager Zhao Shengxin's (赵升新) land were growing vigorously. "If I get Old Wu to send more water, will the corn grow even better?" He went to find the village's water manager, Wu Ninghai (吴宁海).

"Don't overthink it. This water volume was scientifically calculated by agricultural technical experts and is the most suitable for your corn field. Just follow the budget steadily and faithfully." Wu Ninghai's words dispelled Zhao Shengxin's doubts.

Experts help calculate the water volume for irrigation? What exactly is the "budget" Wu Ninghai spoke of?

Ningxia is located in China's northwestern interior, surrounded by desert on three sides, with scarce rainfall and little precipitation; the need for optimized allocation and conservation of water resources is urgent. In 2024, Ningxia was designated by the Ministry of Water Resources (水利部) as the first provincial-level pilot for water budget management. Since then, the concept of fiscal budgeting has been introduced into water resource management, achieving refined management of water resources through measures such as total volume verification, quota allocation, and whole-process supervision.

Full-domain inclusion — every drop of water goes through the budget

Daba Town has more than 110,000 mu of farmland, and irrigation is handled entirely by a professional service cooperative in the town. The cooperative sets up two to three water managers in each village. Wu Ninghai is responsible for the irrigation of more than 4,000 mu of corn fields belonging to more than 300 farming households in Shamiao Village. From June to August, the corn needs to "drink" water four times. Each time he receives a notice, he opens the branch canal entering the village, letting Yellow River water flow along the canal into every corn field. When irrigation reaches the designated volume, he closes the canal again.

"Every year near the end of the year, I compile the water use budget for each household's farmland for the coming year according to the standards and report it to the cooperative, which then reports it to the Water Affairs Bureau (水务局)." Wu Ninghai explained to Zhao Shengxin that the farmland water budget standards are scientifically determined by agricultural technical experts according to crop type. "Just irrigate according to the budgeted volume. Over-irrigating will actually hinder the corn's growth."

In fact, after the water use budget is reported to the local Water Affairs Bureau, it continues to be aggregated and reported upward to the Autonomous Region Department of Water Resources (自治区水利厅), and is ultimately reviewed and issued by the autonomous region government. Ningxia has clarified the processes for compilation, issuance, and execution of water budgets by revising and adding relevant regulations in accordance with the fiscal budget concept — from December each year to January of the following year, all localities compile budgets from the bottom up, then issue quotas according to the budget, strictly controlling water use.

"To achieve full-domain inclusion, last year we established a water budget registry covering all industries, with all water-supplying and water-using units included in the registry — a total of 6,184 water budget units, ensuring that every drop of water goes through the budget." Li Haixia (李海霞), head of the Water Resources Management Division (水资源管理处) of the Autonomous Region Department of Water Resources, introduced that when establishing the registry, the agricultural sector followed the principle of efficiency, determining budget units by a certain scale of water use; industry and the service sector were determined respectively by the two methods of public water supply and self-supplied water intake; for residential living, the water supply management entity serves as the budget unit.

Metering and monitoring make budget execution precise and controllable

"Water intake has reached 90% of the budget quota!" On November 9 last year, an enterprise in Shizuishan City reached the warning "critical value" for annual water intake against its budget quota, and the monitoring system of the Municipal Water Resources Protection and Utilization Service Center (市水资源保护利用服务中心) issued an automatic alert. Center staff member Tao Fangyue (陶芳月) received the alert and immediately contacted the enterprise: "There is still a long way to go before year-end. Will the remaining water budget quota be enough?"

"In the first two months, the factory's water recycling system was shut down for upgrading, and the production line's water consumption exceeded the plan. Now the upgrade is complete and production is more water-efficient. The remaining quota will last until year-end." The words of the enterprise's relevant person in charge put Tao Fangyue at ease.

At present, all water intake points of industrial enterprises included in Ningxia's water budget registry, as well as the canal heads of major agricultural irrigation canals, have been installed with metering facilities and connected to the network for operation.

"Water budget units have achieved full coverage of monitoring and metering, with more than 9,000 monitoring points of various types, and all monitoring data can be used online." Wang Zhengliang (王正良), head of the Water Conservation and Urban-Rural Water Supply Division (节约用水与城乡供水处) of the Autonomous Region Department of Water Resources, clicked the mouse lightly and opened the comprehensive water budget management platform. The real-time budget execution status of each district and county, and the water intake situation of each industrial enterprise and major irrigation canal, were 一目了然 (yī mù liǎo rán - "one glance, fully clear," to see everything at a glance).

With real-time monitoring and data visualization, Ningxia has built a dynamic network of water budget execution through metering and monitoring facilities. Through an early warning mechanism, the water affairs departments promptly alert units whose water use reaches 80%–90% of the water budget quota, helping them identify causes and conduct water conservation diagnostics, and helping water users fulfill their budget execution responsibilities.

The sluice gate is open! In Xinzhuangji Township (新庄集乡), Hongsibu District (红寺堡区), Wuzhong City, Yellow River water rushes from the canals toward the fields. Water manager Ma Yuanhao (马元浩) took out his phone and opened the intelligent operation software, which showed the canal water intake rapidly increasing. After a while, seeing that the water intake had reached the preset value, he quickly clicked the button on the software, and the canal gate two kilometers away closed accordingly.

"In the past, we relied on earthen sluice gates to control canal water intake, estimating the intake only by observing the flow rate with the naked eye — the error was large and the operation was laborious." Ma Yuanhao told reporters that now, through his phone, he can remotely control the opening and closing of gates and view data such as water intake volume and flow rate in real time.

At present, Ningxia's agricultural irrigation districts have installed more than 5,000 sets of intelligent sluice gates and 473,000 digital water meters. Agricultural irrigation has achieved remote automated control, while also facilitating the metering of water intake quotas, making water budget execution more convenient and efficient. "Agricultural water use has long accounted for nearly 80% of Ningxia's total annual water consumption." Chen Guoguang (陈国光), head of the Rural Water Conservancy Division (农村水利处) of the Autonomous Region Department of Water Resources, stated that improving the accuracy of irrigation water intake is of great significance to the execution of water budgets.

Water saving and efficiency enhancement — the concept of budgeted water use is gradually entering people's hearts

At around 9 p.m., Wang Wei (王伟), a large-scale grower in Yangxian Village (杨显村), Shengli Township (胜利乡), Yongning County (永宁县), Yinchuan City, received a phone call from the water manager: "The others are almost done irrigating. You two households at the end should get ready." Wang Wei hurried to his corn field and removed the blocking opening in the field ridge. Before long, Yellow River water flowing along the field-side canal slowly entered the farmland. About an hour later, the corn field had "drunk" its fill, and the water in the canal gradually stopped.

"In the past, it was flood irrigation. After spring began, the canal gates were never closed, and Yellow River water was allowed to flow freely — we never felt a pang of regret." Wang Wei told reporters that since the implementation of water budget management, on irrigation days the canal gates are now opened for a limited time, drawing water from the Yellow River on a fixed schedule and in fixed quantities, with farmers along the canal irrigating in rotation.

Zhu Xiaojun (朱晓军), chairman of the Shengli Township Irrigation Service Professional Cooperative (灌溉服务专业合作社), introduced that after the implementation of water budget management, the annual irrigation water use per mu of corn dropped from nearly 1,000 cubic meters previously to 400 cubic meters now, while per-mu yield in some irrigation areas increased by 50 to 100 kilograms. "Flood irrigation easily causes corn lodging. Budgeted irrigation volume saves water and is also beneficial to the crops," he said.

Today, the concept of water-saving irrigation is gradually entering people's hearts in Ningxia's rural areas. Grassroots irrigation organizations draw water according to budget quotas, and farmers actively cooperate with the budget system for water-saving irrigation. In addition, multiple water-saving measures have been promoted in rural areas: improving field leveling to enhance the "water-locking" effect of irrigation; lining earthen canals with hardened cement panels to reduce water loss along the canals; adopting drip irrigation for cash crops such as vegetables... Ningxia's proportion of high-efficiency water-saving irrigation area and the effective utilization coefficient of farmland irrigation water have been steadily rising, reaching 62.8% and 0.591 respectively at the end of last year, both higher than the national average.

Last year, Ningxia's water budget quota was 7.438 billion cubic meters, and the actual total annual water use was 6.258 billion cubic meters. Water use per 10,000 yuan of regional GDP decreased by 7% compared with 2023.

In addition, for units that genuinely need to increase their budgeted water quota due to production circumstances, they may apply to the local water affairs department, and after review and approval, may purchase budget quota from units with surplus.

Using water sparingly according to the budget brings both ecological benefits and economic benefits. A biological preparation factory in Yinchuan, in order to implement the water budget, reduced its annual water use from 240,000 cubic meters to 190,000 cubic meters through technological renovations such as recovering steam condensate. Gao Feng (高峰), head of the factory's production department, said: "Last September, a chemical plant temporarily expanded production and didn't have enough budgeted water, so it spent 40,000 yuan to buy nearly 20,000 cubic meters of surplus budget water from us."

Last year, Ningxia completed 209 transactions of surplus water budget quota trading, totaling 70.79 million cubic meters. "By allowing surplus budget water to enter the market for trading and establishing corresponding storage and trading mechanisms, we increase the economic returns of water conservation." Zhang Shude (张树德), head of the Policy and Regulation Division (政策法规处) of the Autonomous Region Department of Water Resources, introduced that Ningxia will further explore financial products such as pledge and guarantee of surplus budget water quotas, to further stimulate water users' enthusiasm for water-saving technological renovation and optimized water management.

Return to Top

Rocket-chasing tourism ignites coastal town's cultural travel boom (New scenarios, new momentum)

By: 本报记者 李 蕊

Above the Yellow Sea, the blue waves stretch without end. At 10:30 on August 5, in the Lianli Island viewing area of Haiyang City, Yantai, Shandong, tourists stood packed in several rows, their gazes locked in unison on the distant sea surface, everyone holding their breath and waiting with full expectation.

With a loud boom, flames suddenly burst forth, and the Jielong-3 (Smart Dragon-3) Yao-12 carrier rocket ignited and lifted off, sending the Dongfang Huiyan hyperspectral satellites 01 and 02 into their preset orbits. The viewing area instantly erupted in cheers; some people lifted their children onto their shoulders, others raised their phones to freeze the moment of the rocket's ascent.

"So awe-inspiring!" Even after only a wisp of smoke remained above the sea, Sun Yicheng, a 12-year-old boy from Jinan, was still reluctant to leave. "I want to imprint this moment in my mind."

Haiyang Oriental Spaceport is the only commercial space maritime launch home port in China, having built a complete commercial space industry chain of "stars in the sky, arrows on land, ships at sea, and networks in the air." To date, it has successfully supported 27 maritime rocket launch missions, sending a cumulative total of 166 satellites into their preset orbits.

Building on its space industry resource endowments and taking major space launch missions as opportunities, Haiyang is promoting the transformation of space resources into advantages for cultural tourism industry development and drivers of consumption growth. Scenes that could once only be seen on screens have now become cultural tourism products within reach of tourists.

"Around the major maritime rocket launch events, we adhere to the principle of convenience and benefit for the people. Besides the main venue on Lianli Island, we have also coordinated the planning of three free viewing points — Phoenix Square, White Sail Square, and the Tonghai Visual Corridor — and the ten-thousand-meter golden beach is fully open for citizens and tourists to observe," introduced Shen Haitao, Party Secretary of the Haiyang Municipal Culture and Tourism Bureau.

Besides watching the space launch, what else can one experience?

In fact, several hours before the launch, Lianli Island was already bustling: on the main stage of the viewing area, song and dance performances took turns on stage, with spirited and dynamic melodies resounding along the coast; intelligent robot dogs shuttled through the crowd, performing agile tricks and engaging in playful interactions, attracting children to chase, play, and stop for photos; in the space-themed cultural and creative market, space-themed merchandise dazzled the eyes, and Haiyang intangible cultural heritage creative products were laid out in an orderly fashion...

Sun Yicheng, holding his mother's hand, carefully browsed the stalls. After several comparisons, he picked up a Jielong-3 Yao-12 carrier rocket model: "I want to take this home to collect!"

"We drove all the way from Jinan to Haiyang specifically to 'chase the rocket,' and we arrived two days early," Sun Yicheng's mother said with a smile. "My son is a space enthusiast. As soon as he heard he could come watch the rocket launch, he jumped for joy. This afternoon we're going to the space science museum — the little guy has a belly full of questions to ask!"

In the afternoon, Sun Yicheng and his family walked into the space science museum, where they met a group of children from Germany, Russia, Pakistan, and other countries and regions. The children listened attentively to the history of maritime launch development, space science and technology knowledge, and stories of hard work and dedication, and then made rocket models on site.

"One can both 'view the launch from afar' and 'experience it up close,'" Shen Haitao explained. The locality is making efforts to convert "traffic" into "retention," planning a series of "Space Launch Viewing +" themed activities. The space science museum has joined forces with the Landmine Warfare Memorial Hall to launch an integrated study tour route, which has received more than 50,000 study tour visitors this year.

The cultivation of consumption formats is even more critical. Using "Space +" as a link, Haiyang City aggregates diverse business formats including intangible cultural heritage, time-honored brands, specialty dining, and rural specialty products, laying out new consumption scenarios to continuously inject vitality into space-themed cultural tourism —

The Oriental Haidu Cultural Street has introduced a space-themed experience zone and a marine leisure section, which, once completed, will integrate food, lodging, travel, shopping, and entertainment in one place; the "Haiyang Yangge + specialty dining" consumption scenario integrates intangible cultural heritage performances and live-streamed sales of agricultural products into tourists' daily dining and leisure...

A grand space event has heated up summer consumption in this small coastal city. During the launch period, more than 50,000 space enthusiasts gathered in Haiyang, driving rapid growth in accommodation and related markets. The occupancy rate of key hotels reached 95%, and culture-and-tourism-related consumption increased by 40% year-on-year.

That evening, back at the hotel, Sun Yicheng opened his diary and wrote down his reflections stroke by stroke —

"Today, I stood by the sea and watched with my own eyes as a rocket soared straight into the sky from the sea. At the moment the thunderous roar sounded, I felt my heart fly up with it! This summer, children from other countries also came to China to 'chase the rocket,' and I deeply felt how remarkable our motherland is..."

Return to Top

Differentiated Supply Meets New Consumer Demand (Expert Commentary)

By: 任 荣

Using advantageous industries such as aerospace to drive the upgrading of cultural and tourism formats has become an important path for counties to activate domestic demand potential and promote industrial transformation.

Haiyang's exploration has broken the long-standing path dependence of coastal tourism, aligns with the deployment of "advancing the construction of a strong tourism country" in the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, and also responds to new consumption demands with differentiated supply. The composite business model of "aerospace +," relying on the consumption spillover effect of industrial clusters, expands consumption boundaries and transforms popularity and traffic into normalized consumption momentum. This transformation mechanism of "sci-tech innovation + cultural tourism" has universality; all localities can extend and embed their distinctive resources into the consumption system to promote industrial transformation and upgrading.

Enhancing city capacity and accumulating development momentum cannot be separated from the interaction among industry, city, and tourism. Breaking free from the fixed mindset of "discussing tourism only in terms of tourism" and constructing a development closed loop of "prospering the city through industry, promoting tourism through the city, and achieving symbiosis between industry and tourism," so as to resolve the dilemma of homogeneous development at the county level, is a model that can serve as a reference.

(The author is an associate professor at the School of Management of Shandong University; this article was compiled through an interview by our reporter Li Rui (李蕊).)

Return to Top

Ski resorts unlock new summer experiences

The China Travel Songhua Lake Resort in Jilin City, Jilin Province, is a national-level ski tourism and vacation destination. In recent years, it has leveraged its mountain resources to expand a "summer operations" model. Viewing the sea of clouds and sunrise, admiring the alpine flower seas, and experiencing mountain sports and other projects attract tourists from all over to come for summer cooling and leisure.

Since the "summer operations" opened on April 25 this year, the resort has received a cumulative total of 200,000 tourist visits, a year-on-year increase of 20%. The ski resort has gradually transformed from the past winter "single-season boom" to four-season operations, extending the customer base brought by ice and snow resources into a year-round cultural tourism advantage.

Return to Top

Promoting sustained innovative, high-quality, and sound economic development

By: 金社平

In the first half of this year, gross domestic product grew by 4.7 percent year on year, in line with the annual economic growth target. China's economy has pressed forward under pressure, moving toward innovation and optimization, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality.

In the second half of the year, how should economic work be carried out?

On July 30, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. The meeting pointed out that we should "strengthen confidence, face difficulties head-on, make good use of various opportunities and advantages, and promote high-quality development that is steady and long-lasting," and "promote the sustained development of the economy toward innovation, optimization, and improvement, and strive for a good start to the '15th Five-Year Plan.'"

"Toward innovation," "toward optimization," "toward improvement" — through these three keywords, one can understand the direction of progress, key work, and development logic of China's economy in the second half of the year.

(I)

Momentum toward innovation is a prominent highlight of China's economy at present. To promote the sustained shift of development momentum toward innovation, it is necessary to accelerate the conversion of old and new growth drivers, strengthen development impetus, and stimulate social vitality.

Looking through the "semi-annual report," a structural highlight of substantial value leaps off the page: new growth drivers represented by high-end manufacturing, the intelligent economy, and modern services have contributed more than 40 percent to economic growth.

To understand the contribution rate of over 40 percent, one must look at the development trend behind the data.

First, look at export orders. The "new three items" have not lost momentum, and more innovative products are rising rapidly. In the first half of the year, exports of the "new three items" grew by 46.1 percent year on year; in RMB terms, integrated circuit exports grew by 88.7 percent year on year, surgical robot exports grew by 3.3 times year on year, and the total value of outbound licensing deals for innovative drugs reached approximately 110 billion US dollars... In the order books, the "innovation" content is getting higher and higher.

Second, look at the upgrade report card. Driven by high-end manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing, the machine tool industry has accelerated its upgrade toward high-end and intelligent directions, emerging from years of downturn. In the first half of the year, industry profits grew by 89.2 percent year on year.

It can be seen from this that the new growth drivers currently pulling economic growth constitute a composite power system encompassing the rise of emerging industries, the upgrading of traditional industries, and the iteration of new business forms and new models.

To understand the contribution rate of over 40 percent, one must also look at growth resilience.

Calculations show that in the first half of the year, new growth drivers in the industrial sector, with a value-added share of just over 20 percent, contributed nearly 50 percent of the growth in value added of industrial enterprises above designated size. New growth drivers leverage a small share to drive large growth.

In the second half of the year, China's economy remains in the critical stage of breaking through and establishing momentum in the conversion of old and new growth drivers. To achieve a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan," it is necessary to maintain the strong momentum of new growth drivers and better stimulate their supporting and leading role in economic development.

Highlight priorities and do a good job in scientific and technological innovation.

The "newness" of new growth drivers lies in the shift of growth impetus from factor-driven to innovation-driven. For new growth drivers to become sustainable, progressive growth outcomes, scientific and technological innovation is the key.

With an eye to the long term, it is necessary to strengthen the strategic, forward-looking, and systematic layout of basic research, and support investing early, investing small, investing long-term, and investing in hard technology. Focusing on the present, it is necessary to continue to promote breakthroughs in key core technologies in key fields such as integrated circuits, industrial machine tools, high-end instruments, and basic software — "continue to work on them persistently and keep achieving new results."

Grasp the key and make good use of application scenarios.

The seeds of technology need the soil of scenarios to take root, sprout, and grow into towering trees. To promote the deep integration of the innovation chain and the industrial chain, it is necessary to use "small scenarios" to do "big articles."

It is necessary to combine an effective market with a capable government, select fields with high value, high contribution, and good benefits to open up scenarios, help new technologies cross the "Darwinian sea" from the laboratory to the market, and give rise to more new quality productive forces through a thriving industrial ecosystem.

Make overall plans and take all factors into consideration, and accelerate the conversion of old and new growth drivers.

Economic development is a process of continuous succession and conversion of old and new growth drivers. Only with the smooth succession and conversion of old and new growth drivers can a leap in productive forces be achieved.

On the one hand, it is necessary to "pursue the new." Do a good job in forward planning, regularly carry out research on technology foresight and potential tracks, formulate lists of key technologies for future industries, actively open up new tracks and new directions, and promote the growth of "experimental fields" into "high-yield fields."

On the other hand, it is necessary to "climb higher." Adhere to the principle of the whole country as one chessboard, develop according to local conditions and with differentiated positioning, promote the transformation of traditional industries toward high-end, intelligent, green, and integrated development, and drive increments by activating existing stock.

(II)

Structure toward optimization is a positive change in China's economy at present. To promote the sustained optimization of the economic structure, it is necessary to intensify the expansion of domestic demand and optimize supply, promoting the upgrading and optimization of the demand structure and the supply structure.

Some have noted that in the second quarter of this year, indicators such as total retail sales of consumer goods and fixed asset investment came under pressure. How should the performance of domestic demand be viewed?

First, look at consumption. The trend is changing. To observe China's consumption situation, one must look at the full caliber.

In the "semi-annual report," service retail sales grew by 5.3 percent year on year, 4.2 percentage points higher than goods retail sales.

Among sub-divided products, sales revenue from tourism, sightseeing, and entertainment services grew by 12.0 percent year on year, outpacing many physical consumer goods categories.

On the expenditure side, in the first half of the year, the proportion of per capita service consumption expenditure in residents' consumption expenditure increased by 0.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year.

The data confirm a fact: China's consumer market is steadily moving toward a new stage where "goods and services" are equally important, and service consumption has become an important engine driving consumption growth.

Extending the perspective, the change has long since occurred.

One curve is the proportion of the value added of the service industry in GDP. In 2012, it was 45.5 percent; in 2015, 50.5 percent, exceeding half for the first time; in the first half of this year, 59.5 percent.

One curve is the contribution rate of the service industry to GDP. In 2012, it was 45.0 percent; in 2014, 49.9 percent; in the first half of this year, it reached 66.1 percent, becoming the industry with the largest contribution rate.

Changes in structure reflect changes in trends. To expand consumption, the focus of effort must change.

The top-level design is already clear. From April 7 to 8, the National Service Industry Conference was held in Beijing. This was the first meeting convened under the name "National Service Industry Conference."

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Promote the high-quality, diversified, and convenient development of consumer services, cultivate more 'China Service' brands, and strive to open up a new situation of high-quality development of the service industry."

In the "15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption" issued not long ago, among the six major tasks for promoting consumption, "promoting the quality improvement and benefit to the people of service consumption" ranks first.

By following the trend, optimizing supply, and innovating scenarios, we can fully tap the potential of service consumption and effectively expand domestic demand.

Then look at investment. The "center of gravity" has changed. To observe China's investment situation, one must look not only at the total volume but also at the structure.

Observing the total volume, in the first half of the year, the total scale of fixed asset investment nationwide reached 22.6 trillion yuan, and the base plate remains huge.

Observing the structure, in the first half of the year, the proportion of investment in intellectual property products in fixed asset investment rose to 13.0 percent, already approaching the proportion of real estate development investment.

Not only that, investment in emerging fields is accelerating to fill the gap. In the first half of the year, investment in the integrated circuit manufacturing industry, the electronic special materials manufacturing industry, and the lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry grew by 8.8 percent, 10.0 percent, and 24.4 percent, respectively.

This shows that the "center of gravity" of investment is undergoing profound changes — it is directed not only toward land, equipment, and facilities, but also toward the "scientific innovation brain," closely combining investment in things with investment in people.

To stabilize investment, it is necessary to follow the new trend. It is necessary to focus on building the "foundation," coordinately advancing the construction of 109 major projects and the "six networks" plan, strengthening multi-network coordination and deep coupling, and empowering the modern industrial system; it is also necessary to focus on investing in people, anchoring on key points, concentrating efforts, stimulating people's development potential, and helping improve productivity and economic growth.

(III)

Fundamentals toward improvement is a long-term trend of China's economy. To promote the sustained improvement of China's economy, it is necessary to make good use of various opportunities and advantages, effectively respond to various external shocks and internal difficulties, and promote high-quality development that is steady and long-lasting.

Where does the confidence in improving fundamentals come from?

In the first half of the year, China's GDP was 69,570.4 billion yuan, with an increment of 3.6 trillion yuan, the highest for the same period in the past five years.

In longitudinal comparison, 3.6 trillion yuan is approximately the size of Jiangxi's entire economy last year, equivalent to creating a new emerging industrial province in half a year.

Looking back at the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's economy has accumulated a total increment of over 36 trillion yuan, equivalent to the annual economic output of the world's third-largest economy. Now, at the start of the "15th Five-Year Plan," the 3.6 trillion yuan increment is steady and valuable.

Looking at the world, 3.6 trillion yuan is equivalent to the annual economic output of quite a few medium-sized economies.

China remains the "stabilizing anchor" of the global economy. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, while lowering their forecasts for world economic growth this year, have both raised their forecasts for China's economic growth, casting a "vote of confidence" in China's economy.

In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," China's economy has progressed steadily, and its hard power has continued to grow. The proportion of manufacturing value added in GDP has risen to 26.2 percent, and the scale of network infrastructure is the largest and most extensive in the world. China's economy possesses a solid foundation and strong support for withstanding risks and achieving steady and long-term development.

It cannot be denied that China's economic development does currently face some difficulties and challenges. But it must be seen even more that China's economy has a stable foundation, multiple advantages, strong resilience, and great potential, and the supporting conditions and basic trend of long-term improvement have not changed. These problems in development and pains in transformation can be gradually overcome and resolved through effort.

How to provide escort?

Looking at the big picture, macro policies should exert force and improve effectiveness.

Effective macro policies and precise macro regulation are important means of escorting China's economy toward steady and long-term development.

Intensify counter-cyclical adjustment, continue to implement a more proactive fiscal policy and a moderately loose monetary policy; fully leverage the effectiveness of various existing stock policies, promptly plan and introduce pragmatic and effective incremental policies, and strengthen the consistency of macro policy orientations... Responding to changes in the external situation with the effectiveness of macro governance will consolidate and expand the trend of steady improvement in the economy.

Starting from the small details, respond promptly to the concerns of enterprises.

Enterprises are the basic cells of the national economy, and a good business environment is the fertile soil for the healthy development of enterprises. To promote the sustained development of the economy toward innovation, optimization, and improvement, it is necessary to promptly respond to the concerns of enterprises, continuously optimize the business environment, and continuously stimulate the vitality of micro-entities.

How to break "involution-style" competition? A negative list for local fiscal subsidies, a list of matters hindering the construction of a unified national market, regulations on the construction of a unified national market, a list of encouraged and prohibited matters for local government investment promotion... Make good use of the legal "toolbox," strike a good "combination punch" of regulation, comprehensively rectify "involution-style" competition, and promote a healthier and more orderly market ecology.

How to clear overdue payments? Arrange special local government bond quotas to support the clearance of arrears, implement the "National Basic List of Measures for Punishing Dishonesty (2026 Edition)," and incorporate the clearance of overdue payments owed to enterprises into the performance assessment of local governments... A systematic "combination punch" aims to solve the problem of overdue payments to enterprises on a normalized basis.

Devise new policies and take practical measures to create a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized first-class business environment, which will provide better conditions for the innovative development of various enterprises.

One should take a long-term view.

Let us unify our thoughts and actions with the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speeches and the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, strengthen confidence, face difficulties head-on, promote high-quality development that is steady and long-lasting, and strive for a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan."

Return to Top

Lianyi crude oil pipeline Lianhuai section successfully commissioned

This newspaper, Beijing, August 14 (Reporter Wang Yunshan) — On August 13, the commissioning of the Lianyungang-Huai'an segment of the Lianyungang-Yizheng crude oil pipeline project, a key national oil and natural gas infrastructure project, succeeded on the first attempt. This is the first ten-million-ton-class crude oil pipeline to be commissioned in the opening year of China's "15th Five-Year Plan" (十五五), and is of great significance for optimizing the energy supply structure of central and eastern China and improving the "one national network" layout of oil and gas.

The Lianyungang-Huai'an segment of the Lianyungang-Yizheng pipeline starts from the first station in Xuzhou New Area (徐圩新区), Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province, and ends at the Huai'an oil delivery station of the Riyi pipeline in Huaiyin District (淮阴区), Huai'an City, with a total length of 143.8 kilometers and a designed annual oil transmission capacity of 18.5 million tons. After commissioning, it will be connected with the already-operating Riyi pipeline, with a maximum daily transmission volume of 70,000 tons, serving and safeguarding refining and chemical enterprises in Jiangsu Province and along the Yangtze River, effectively enhancing the multi-channel resource guarantee capacity for users along the Yangtze River, and playing an important role in optimizing the oil and gas pipeline network layout of the Yangtze River Delta region and the unified allocation of crude oil resources.

Return to Top

Ecological guardianship spanning ten thousand miles

By: 本报记者 车 斌

The bar-tailed godwit, a species of shorebird that holds the record for the longest non-stop flight of any bird, departs each March from New Zealand and Australia, flying continuously for over 10,000 kilometers to reach China's coastal wetlands. After staying for one to two months to winter, feed, and roost, it flies several thousand kilometers to the Russian Far East and Alaska in the United States to breed, and in autumn crosses the Pacific Ocean back to the Southern Hemisphere. The bar-tailed godwit's global migration story reflects China's joint protection with all parties across mountains and seas, and exemplifies China's vivid practice of pursuing modernization featuring harmony between humanity and nature.

"A pragmatic move to practice the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets"

Originating from the southern foot of Tianchi Lake on Changbai Mountain, the Yalu River flows southwestward all the way to the Yellow Sea. Where the river meets the sea, land, marshes, mudflats, and shallow waters interweave and stretch into continuous expanses, forming a composite ecosystem of nearly 100,000 hectares. This is the Yalu River Estuary Wetland National Nature Reserve, located in Donggang City, Dandong, Liaoning Province.

The Yalu River Estuary Wetland is one of the world's most concentrated migration sites for bird populations. Every spring, hundreds of thousands of migratory birds stop here to rest, feed, and breed. Whenever there is a spring tide, the rising tide drives the migratory birds on the mudflats to take flight, gathering and circling in the air to form "bird waves" stretching several hundred meters or even one kilometer; when the tide recedes, the migratory birds regroup on the mudflats, forming a vibrant natural tableau.

"Judging from this spring's northward migration of waterbirds, shorebirds have consistently dominated the reserve. During monitoring, we found 33 shorebirds wearing colored flags from the Yalu River Estuary Wetland, Chongming Dongtan in Shanghai, New Zealand, Australia, and other places, including the 'star waterbird' — the bar-tailed godwit," Ma Li, director of the Yalu River Estuary Wetland National Nature Reserve Management Center, told reporters. The highest single record showed 60,000 bar-tailed godwits gathered here at once.

On the bar-tailed godwit's circular migration journey of up to 30,000 kilometers, the Yalu River Estuary Wetland is one of its important stopover and refueling sites. Lei Guangchun, a professor at Beijing Forestry University, explained that bar-tailed godwits do not feed before reaching their destination, often flying at 60 kilometers per hour, covering a thousand li a day, and flying continuously for over a week from New Zealand to reach the Yalu River Estuary Wetland. "When they first arrive, they weigh only 200 to 300 grams, and their bellies are flat. After replenishing sufficient energy at the Yalu River Estuary, their bellies become round when they depart, and they can weigh 500 to 600 grams."

The Yalu River Estuary Wetland is located at the northernmost point of the Yellow Sea ecoregion. Over millions of years, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, and dozens of their tributaries have carried vast amounts of sediment and nutrients to accumulate along the coasts of the Yellow and Bohai Seas, resulting in abundant benthic organisms and rich resources of fish, shrimp, crabs, and shellfish, supporting numerous birds in stopping over, replenishing energy, wintering, and breeding. "The differentiation of birds' beak shapes determines their foraging niches. The bar-tailed godwit's beak is slender and slightly upturned, and the sandworms buried deep in the mud are their favorite food," Lei Guangchun said.

"The bar-tailed godwit is a near-threatened species, but in the Yalu River Estuary Wetland, its overall population has remained very stable, and the population observable here accounts for one-third of the global total," Ma Li stated.

In recent years, the local government has implemented the Regulations on the Management of the Dandong Yalu River Estuary Wetland National Nature Reserve, carried out projects to return farmland and aquaculture ponds to wetlands, and launched the "Blue Bay" action. The wetland ecology has continuously improved, biodiversity has gradually recovered, and the number of migratory waterbirds has increased year by year. Monitoring records show that the observable bird species in the Yalu River Estuary Wetland Reserve increased from 250 species in 43 families in 2010 to 324 species in 63 families in 2021.

In 2024, the second phase of the China Yellow (Bohai) Sea Migratory Bird Habitats World Natural Heritage site — the world's first World Natural Heritage site nominated under the theme of migratory bird flyways — was officially approved. Dandong Yalu River Estuary was successfully inscribed on the World Heritage List as one of five key sites. Lei Guangchun participated in the entire heritage nomination process. He stated: "Protecting migratory bird habitats is a pragmatic move by China to practice the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. The successful heritage inscription not only reflects the international community's high recognition of China's ecological civilization construction and green development, but also provides new opportunities for future ecological protection and sustainable development."

"Setting a model for international migratory bird protection cooperation"

At the other end of the bar-tailed godwit's global migration route lies the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in New Zealand, ten thousand li away from the Yalu River Estuary Wetland.

Driving over an hour from downtown Auckland, New Zealand, and passing through the vast grasslands of northern Waikato, reporters arrived at the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre. The Firth of Thames, where the centre is located, features the ridges of the Coromandel Peninsula in the distance, and at one's feet are coastal sand ridges formed by waves pushing shells and sand ashore, as well as flat sandbars, mudflats, and crabs, worms, and shellfish emerging with the tides. This place has become the "warm home" for bar-tailed godwits migrating south to winter.

"When the bar-tailed godwit spreads its wings and soars high, it cherishes the sisterhood established in April 2004 between the Yalu River Estuary Wetland National Nature Reserve in China and the Miranda Naturalists' Trust in New Zealand, two shorebird habitats." Walking 400 meters along the birdwatching coastline, one finds the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre. This passage engraved on the stone tablet in front of the centre's gate records the story of the continuously deepening cooperation between the two sides.

The cooperation story dates back to 2002. That year, researchers from both sides discovered bar-tailed godwits wearing flags exclusive to the two locations, confirming for the first time the ecological link between the godwits' "northward migration refueling site" and their "Southern Hemisphere wintering site." A bond of affinity thus began. Through the liaison of Wetlands International China Office, the two sides formally established sister protected areas in 2004 and signed a memorandum of understanding for international cooperation.

Since then, New Zealand personnel have visited the Yalu River Estuary Wetland seven times, and Chinese personnel have visited the Miranda Shorebird Centre four times, jointly carrying out cooperation in shorebird surveys, waterbird capture and banding, and wetland conservation publicity and education. Jia Na, a staff member of the Dandong Forestry and Grassland Development Service Center, visited the Pūkorokoro Miranda Shorebird Centre in 2006. Recalling the two months of work and exchange at the shorebird centre, Jia Na said: "Birdwatching was an indispensable part of our daily work. The most exciting thing was finding a flag that was green on top and orange on the bottom, which meant the migratory shorebird came from the Yalu River Estuary Wetland."

Last September, the two sides renewed and signed a Memorandum of Understanding under China's National Forestry and Grassland Administration, opening a new chapter in this transnational ecological cooperation spanning more than 20 years.

At the shorebird centre, reporters met its manager, Keith Woodley. Since 1993, Woodley has worked here, treating the place as home and keeping company with birds, witnessing the more than 20 years of friendly ties between the China-New Zealand sister protected areas.

"I have visited the Yalu River Estuary seven times, all in April and May when the bar-tailed godwits arrive. Although I visit in the same season each time, I have observed China's tremendous changes over the years," Woodley told reporters. The infrastructure around the Yalu River Estuary Wetland has been improving, and more and more Chinese people are interested in migratory bird protection. Thanks to the support of the Chinese government and research institutions such as Beijing Forestry University and Fudan University, the level of local migratory bird monitoring and protection has been continuously elevated.

Currently, both protected areas use satellite tracking technology to monitor the birds' flight routes and movement trajectories in real time. This April, the Yalu River Estuary Wetland Reserve installed six intelligent waterbird monitoring devices at six concentrated bird sites. These devices can automatically identify bird species and count numbers through bird calls and video images. Woodley is excited about this, saying: "This will effectively improve the accuracy of our joint data collection, monitoring, and protection."

"I have visited Dandong several times and witnessed tens of thousands of bar-tailed godwits soaring in formation over the mudflats of the Yalu River Estuary. The sky filled with flying feathers is awe-inspiring, echoing the scenes at the Miranda Wetland," former New Zealand Ambassador to China Clare Fearnley told reporters in an interview. "The two places became sister protected areas and have worked hand in hand for over 20 years, setting a model for international migratory bird protection cooperation."

"Increasingly demonstrating global leadership in biodiversity conservation, ecological civilization construction, and other areas"

From south to north, the migration miracle of the bar-tailed godwit is linked to a special corridor — the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.

Data shows that China is one of the countries with the richest bird resources in the world and an important corridor for global transboundary migratory bird movement. There are nine major migratory bird flyways globally, four of which pass through China. The East Asian–Australasian Flyway passes through China's central and eastern provinces, extending from the Arctic Circle in the north to Australia and New Zealand in the south, covering Oceania, Asia, and North America. It hosts migratory birds from more than 250 populations, involves 22 countries, and is the busiest migration route in the world.

In November 2022, at the 14th Meeting of the Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, the Chinese side proposed establishing an International Mangrove Center in Shenzhen. In November 2024, representatives of the first 18意向成员国 signed the Agreement on the Establishment of the International Mangrove Center in Shenzhen. This June, the agreement officially entered into force.

It is not just Shenzhen. China has established more than 2,200 wetland-type nature protected areas, certified 82 Wetlands of International Importance, designated 80 nationally important wetlands, and has 22 International Wetland Cities, with the national wetland area remaining stable at over 800 million mu. Musonda Mumba, Secretary-General of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, stated that China has made remarkable progress in wetland protection, "providing valuable experience for global wetland conservation."

It is not limited to wetlands. China has completed afforestation of 36.6 million hectares, ecological protection and restoration of over 5.4 million hectares, seen the threat level of nearly 500 wild animal and plant species downgraded, and witnessed steady population growth of more than 300 rare and endangered wild animal and plant species. Fearnley, who has lived and worked in China for over 10 years, said with deep feeling: "China's ecological protection achievements are remarkable. China has charted a development path where economic growth and ecological protection advance in tandem, complementing each other and jointly supporting the overall well-being of the Chinese people."

China is also a leader in global ecological civilization construction: it has ratified and implemented more than 30 multilateral environmental conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat; it has become the largest contributor to the core budget of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its protocols; it is the largest developing-country contributor to the Global Environment Facility; it promoted the adoption of the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework; and it established the Kunming Biodiversity Fund, which has funded two batches of 31 projects benefiting 45 developing countries.

China has jointly carried out transboundary protection with Russia, opening up ecological corridors for tiger and leopard migration and reproduction; co-built a global Allium garden with Uzbekistan to conserve germplasm resources of Allium plants worldwide; assisted in compiling the Flora of Rwanda, filling gaps in local biodiversity data; and supported Indonesia's mangrove restoration projects... Shahbaz Khan, Director of the UNESCO Regional Office for East Asia, stated: "China is increasingly demonstrating global leadership in biodiversity conservation, ecological civilization construction, and other areas."

Birds flit gracefully; all living things coexist. From protecting one migratory bird flyway to leading global biodiversity governance, China is fulfilling its solemn commitment to building a community of all life on Earth through concrete actions. In the future, China will continue to work with all parties to contribute more Chinese wisdom and Chinese strength to global ecological civilization construction, continuously writing new chapters in jointly building a community of life between humanity and nature.

Layout design: Shen Yiling

Return to Top

Only by facing historical truths can tragedies be avoided (International Forum)

By: 林少彬

The meaning of memory lies not in perpetuating hatred, but in holding fast to the truth; truth has never been a burden hindering relations between nations, but rather the foundation for building trust.

August 15, 1945 was the day Japan announced its unconditional surrender. Since then, on this day each year, the peoples of Asian countries have looked back on those years of suffering in different ways, drawing from history the strength to safeguard peace. I have studied the history of Japan's aggression against Asia for more than 40 years. After Japan announced its unconditional surrender in 1945, my grandfather Lin Kuiyi was still brutally murdered by the Japanese military police. The pain of family and country impelled me to continually interrogate history, but I know well that only by cross-checking fragments of historical materials—military orders, rosters, maps, reports, memoirs—one by one, can the outline of the truth be pieced together; and only by facing the historical truth squarely and accounting for the crimes of aggression can tragedy be prevented from recurring and lasting peace in Asia be maintained.

Over the past 10 years, my research has focused on the Japanese army's Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment. The full name of this unit was the "Southern Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department." It was formed in Nanjing in 1942, departed from Shanghai, arrived in Singapore in June of the same year, and subsequently, with Singapore as its center, operated across Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and other parts of Southeast Asia. On the surface, this unit was tasked with "epidemic prevention and water supply," but in reality it secretly engaged in pathogen research, animal breeding experiments, and preparations for bacteriological warfare. Medicine was hijacked by militarism, transformed completely from a tool for protecting life into a weapon for harming innocent people.

To study Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment, one cannot merely pursue individual perpetrators; one should all the more expose the institutional and decision-making mechanisms behind it. As the evidence of crimes emerges, I have become all the more convinced: the atrocities committed by Japanese militarism were by no means incidental acts, but rather organized, premeditated, top-down systematic state crimes. On a newly compiled secret Japanese military report, the words "memorial for imperial presentation" are written on the right side, and the date on which the unit completed its formation is clearly recorded as May 5, 1942, indicating that its establishment was a state act incorporated into the high-level decision-making system of the Japanese military. A 1945 Japanese military roster shows that the Japanese personnel of Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment at one point reached 850, and with locally recruited and conscripted personnel in the occupied territories, the overall strength exceeded one thousand. From the memorialization and issuance of military orders, to the cross-regional dispatch of personnel and materiel, to the concealment of crimes against humanity under the name of "epidemic prevention and water supply," the composition and operation of Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment displayed pronounced organizational and planned character—it was systematic state crime.

This history makes clear that the profound war suffering borne by the Chinese people and the peoples of Southeast Asian countries is interconnected and shares the same root, delineating the logic of Japanese militarism's aggression and expansion. Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment was formed in China and subsequently spread to Southeast Asia with Singapore as its base; its dispatch route and deployment trajectory constitute a clear chain of evidence, confirming that the atrocities of the Japanese army in China and Southeast Asia were not independent of each other, but rather different links in the same system of aggression. In the 1945 roster of Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment, I identified 40 personnel from China's Taiwan. They were uniformly listed at the lowest rank as "military dependents and employees"; some had adopted Japanese-style names under the coercion of colonial rule, exposing the coercion and exploitation of the Taiwan region by the Japanese colonial authorities. The whole of Asia was strung together by Japanese militarism's ambition to conquer Asia, etched with the same war memory interwoven with blood and tears.

What must be guarded against is that Japan's narrative of aggression has never truly exited the stage. In recent years, right-wing forces in Japan have vigorously pursued historical revisionism, attempting to blur the lines between aggression and resistance to aggression, between perpetrators and victims, and even recklessly trying to package the history of aggression as so-called "liberation of Asia." The narrative logic of Japanese militarism often begins with distorting history, manufacturing hostility, and obscuring responsibility, and then proceeds to package expansion as "security" and beautify aggression as "self-defense." Page after page of yellowed military orders and rosters remind the world at all times that the collective suffering of the victimized countries must not be forgotten, and that Japan's historical responsibility cannot be evaded. Truly stable state-to-state relations must be built on the foundation of respecting historical facts and the memory of the victimized countries. I have donated the historical materials I have collected to research institutions, hoping that they will be properly organized and used, and I also hope that more young people will see clearly how the narrative of aggression was woven and how exculpatory lies were fabricated. It is necessary for Asian countries to further strengthen archival sharing, site investigations, and joint research, piecing together evidence scattered across different lands, so as to restore for future generations a more complete and indisputable memory of the Asian war.

The meaning of memory lies not in perpetuating hatred, but in holding fast to the truth; truth has never been a burden hindering relations between nations, but rather the foundation for building trust. Only by sincerely reviewing past conduct and reflecting on historical guilt can one win genuine and lasting trust from neighboring countries and the international community. Upholding historical justice is not directed against any particular country or nation, but is the common responsibility of all who cherish peace. Remembering the crimes of Unit 9420 of the Oka Detachment, remembering the profound disasters commonly experienced by Asian countries—let lies never again pave the way for war.

(The author is a Singaporean scholar and co-author of The Japanese Army's Oka Unit 9420.)

Return to Top

Ecuadorian President Noboa to Visit China

Beijing, August 14 (Xinhua) — A Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced on August 14 that at the invitation of President Xi Jinping, Daniel Roy-Gilchrist Noboa Azin, President of the Republic of Ecuador, will pay a state visit to China from August 16 to 23.

Return to Top

Foreign Ministry briefs on preparations for the third APEC Senior Officials' Meeting

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 14 — As the host of the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, China will hold the APEC Third Senior Officials' Meeting and related meetings in Dalian, Liaoning Province, from August 17 to 28. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun briefed reporters on the meeting's preparations on the 14th in response to inquiries.

Guo Jiakun stated that this meeting is the Senior Officials' Meeting with the largest scale of attendees and the greatest number of events, and it will promote the achievement of more cooperation outcomes across various fields and mechanisms under the APEC framework, making preparations for the Leaders' Meeting in November.

Guo Jiakun stated that during the meeting, the Senior Officials' Meeting plenary session, as well as meetings of committees under the Senior Officials' Meeting, working group meetings, seminars, and other related meetings will be held, covering multiple fields including trade, transportation, food, customs, science and technology, energy, health, disaster reduction, and anti-corruption, comprising nearly 130 meeting events. It is expected that more than 2,300 representatives from APEC member economies, the Secretariat, the APEC Business Advisory Council, and the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, among others, will attend.

"The meeting venue, Dalian, is a window city for opening up to the outside world in the northeastern region, with a solid industrial foundation, a favorable business environment, prominent locational advantages, and beautiful, livable scenery," Guo Jiakun said. He welcomed journalist friends to closely follow and report on the Third Senior Officials' Meeting and related meetings, and to continue to pay attention to and support the APEC "China Year."

Return to Top

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Remarks on Ecuadorian President Noboa’s Upcoming Visit to China

Beijing, August 14 — At the invitation of President Xi Jinping, President Daniel Noboa Azin of the Republic of Ecuador will pay a state visit to China from August 16 to 23. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson answered questions from reporters on the 14th regarding President Noboa's visit to China.

A reporter asked: China has released the news of Ecuadorian President Noboa's visit to China. How does China view the current China-Ecuador relations? Could you share the program of the visit and China's expectations?

The spokesperson stated that Ecuador is an important country in Latin America, and China and Ecuador are comprehensive strategic partners. In recent years, under the strategic guidance of the heads of state of the two countries, China-Ecuador relations have maintained a sound momentum of development. The two sides have signed cooperation documents on jointly building the Belt and Road and a free trade agreement, practical cooperation in various fields between the two countries has yielded fruitful results, and people-to-people friendship has continued to deepen.

The spokesperson said that this visit is President Noboa's first state visit to China. President Xi Jinping will hold talks with President Noboa, and Premier Li Qiang and Chairman Zhao Leji will meet with him respectively. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the China-Ecuador comprehensive strategic partnership. "China hopes that through this visit, the two sides will further consolidate political mutual trust, carry forward the traditional friendship, and continuously achieve new progress in the China-Ecuador comprehensive strategic partnership, so as to better benefit the peoples of the two countries."

Return to Top

Photo Report

The East Coast Rail Link project in Malaysia, contracted to a Chinese enterprise, entered the dynamic testing and fault-free operation phase on August 14 for the Kota Bharu to Gombak section (i.e., Phase 1). It is understood that dynamic testing and fault-free operation are important steps before a railway is opened and put into service. The photo shows train attendants walking past a train at Gombak station in Selangor, Malaysia, on August 14.
　　Photo by Zhang Wenzong (张纹综) (Xinhua)

Return to Top

Defense Ministry: Japan's "new militarism" threat must be guarded against

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 14 (Reporter Wang Chuntao) — Ministry of National Defense Spokesperson Chen Xi said on the 14th that recently, Japan's "new militarism" can be said to have revealed its true face with the dagger finally drawn from the scroll, and the calamity it portends must be guarded against.

A reporter asked: Tomorrow is August 15, the day 81 years ago when Japan announced its unconditional surrender. But now Japan's right-wing forces are constantly tampering with history and expanding armaments and building up military strength. The Japanese Defense Ministry is about to submit its FY2027 defense budget request totaling approximately 8.9 trillion yen, setting yet another record high. What is your comment?

Chen Xi said: Eighty-one years ago, under the heavy blows of China and the world's anti-fascist forces, Japan announced its unconditional surrender. In those years, Japanese militarism dragged all of Asia into an abyss of blood and fire. Atrocities such as the Nanjing Massacre, the Bataan Death March, and the Thailand–Burma Death Railway brought profound suffering to the peoples of Asia and the world, and the Japanese people themselves were also deeply victimized.

"However, after its defeat, Japan did not truly draw lessons from history. It has long indulged right-wing forces in distorting and denying its crimes of aggression, has tried by every possible means to break through the 'Peace Constitution' and the principle of 'exclusive defense,' and has vainly attempted to challenge the postwar international order, becoming a force of destruction to regional peace and stability," Chen Xi said. Recently, the Japanese side has gone further, using the so-called "external threat" as a pretext to substantially raise its defense budget, vigorously develop offensive capabilities, and massively expand its military-industrial base. Japan's "new militarism" can be said to have revealed its true face with the dagger finally drawn from the scroll, and the calamity it portends must be guarded against.

"The truth of history must not be forgotten, and justice and peace must not be defiled," Chen Xi said. "We urge the Japanese side to engage in deep self-reflection, confess its crimes and atone for them, strictly abide by the postwar international order, and stop its dangerous acts of 'remilitarization.' To stray once again onto the wrong path will only bring an even more bitter defeat and a more thorough reckoning."

Return to Top

Chinese Embassy in Pakistan Hosts Symposium on Profound Lessons from the CPC's 105-Year Glorious Journey

This newspaper Islamabad, August 14 (Reporter Zhao Yipu). On August 13, the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan hosted a symposium themed "Profound Enlightenment from the Glorious 105-Year Journey of the Chinese Communist Party." Chinese Ambassador to Pakistan Jiang Zaidong and an expert delegation from the International Department of the CPC Central Committee (中联部) elaborated in depth on the worldwide significance of the Chinese Communist Party's experience in party governance, state governance, and political administration, and engaged in interactive exchanges with Pakistani think tanks and media.

Pakistani guests stated that the glorious 105-year journey of the Chinese Communist Party provides important enlightenment for Pakistan in advancing national development and modernization. Pakistan is willing to continue deepening exchanges with China on governance experience and to push Pakistan-China relations to a new level.

Return to Top

Carry out study and publicity on the compilation of the Ecological Environment Code.

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 14 — Recently, 19 departments and units including the Central Publicity Department (中央宣传部), the Central Organization Department (中央组织部), the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (中央政法委), the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (全国人大常委会办公厅), the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委), the Ministry of Education (教育部), the Ministry of Justice (司法部), the Ministry of Natural Resources (自然资源部), and the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (生态环境部) jointly issued a notice, deploying the study and publicity work of the "Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China."

The notice emphasizes that it is necessary to adhere to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law and Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, closely focus on comprehensively advancing the construction of a rule-of-law China and the construction of a Beautiful China, take the study, publicity, and implementation of the Ecological Environment Code as an important task for adhering to comprehensive rule of law and advancing the ecological civilization construction of the new era on the track of the rule of law, incorporate it into the key content of the "Ninth Five-Year" legal publicity, organically integrate it into all aspects of rule-of-law construction, education and training, and social practice, coordinate and do well news publicity and social publicity, online publicity and offline publicity, domestic publicity and foreign publicity, educate and guide the broad masses of cadres and the people to continuously enhance their rule-of-law literacy in ecological civilization, consciously practice the concept that green waters and green mountains are gold and silver mountains, and actively participate in the practice of modernization characterized by harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

The notice proposes that the study and publicity of the Ecological Environment Code should be connected with the study and publicity of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, combined with the vivid practice of China's ecological civilization construction and rule-of-law construction since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and the theoretical logic, practical foundation, and contemporary value of the Ecological Environment Code should be comprehensively and accurately understood and publicly interpreted. It is necessary to deeply study and publicize that the Ecological Environment Code, as China's second law named with the title "Code" after the Civil Code, is another major achievement of China's socialist rule-of-law construction in the new era, and has a significant and far-reaching impact on advancing the ecological civilization construction of the new era with rule-of-law concepts and rule-of-law methods, and accelerating the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. It is necessary to deeply study and publicize the basic spirit and main content of the Ecological Environment Code, guiding the whole society to better grasp the historical inevitability and practical necessity of simultaneously advancing high-quality development and high-level protection, and firmly establishing the ecological civilization concept of respecting nature, conforming to nature, and protecting nature.

The notice proposes that news reporting and publicity interpretation should be carefully organized, making full use of the time node of August 15, the National Ecology Day, and the official implementation of the Ecological Environment Code, organizing media at all levels and of all types to launch news reports and authoritative interviews, and organizing experts and scholars to write interpretation articles. Social publicity and thematic activities should be extensively carried out, making good use of various rule-of-law publicity positions and practical activity carriers, promoting the study and publicity of the Ecological Environment Code into government organs, enterprises and public institutions, urban and rural communities, emerging fields, and the internet. The study and education of key groups such as leading cadres, young people, relevant law enforcement personnel, and practitioners should be highlighted. Online publicity should be innovatively carried out, theoretical and academic research should be deepened, foreign publicity should be carefully organized, and the story of China's ecological environment rule of law in the new era should be well told.

The notice requires that ideological understanding and action consciousness should be raised, the study and publicity of the Ecological Environment Code should be combined with the implementation of the Party Central Committee's relevant major decisions and deployments, combined with promoting the establishment and practice of a correct view of political achievements, to ensure good results are achieved. The legal publicity responsibility system of "whoever enforces the law publicizes the law" should be implemented, and the publicity of the Ecological Environment Code should be integrated into the entire process of rule-of-law practice. Overall coordination should be strengthened, and the study and publicity of the Ecological Environment Code should be incorporated into the overall arrangement of rule-of-law publicity education and ecological civilization publicity education. Work concepts should be innovated, forms with contemporary characteristics and convenient for mass participation should be adopted, formalism should be strictly avoided, and the burden on grassroots must not be increased.

Return to Top

2026 National Ecological Day event theme announced

Our newspaper Hulunbuir, August 14 (reporters Wu Yong (吴勇), Li Zhiyao (李祉瑶)). According to the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委), the theme of the 2026 National Ecology Day activities has been determined as "deepening the green foundation of Chinese-style modernization (中国式现代化)," and the main venue activities will be held on August 15 in Hulunbuir City, Inner Mongolia.

The 2026 National Ecology Day activities will focus on publicizing and explaining Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization (习近平生态文明思想), and widely disseminating the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets (绿水青山就是金山银山); studying and implementing the Ecological Environment Code (生态环境法典), and telling well the stories of rule of law in ecological civilization; deeply publicizing the historic, transformative, and overall changes that have occurred in China's ecological civilization construction from theory to practice; reporting in depth on the key directions of China's acceleration of the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development; focusing on interpreting the key tasks and important measures for ecological civilization construction during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period; popularizing and promoting green and low-carbon lifestyles; strengthening the whole people's awareness of conservation, environmental protection, and ecology; and promoting the formation of a good social atmosphere.

Return to Top

High-level rule of law safeguards the building of a Beautiful China

By: 董丝雨

August 15 this year marks the fourth National Ecological Day, and the Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China officially took effect, further consolidating the legal cornerstone for the construction of a Beautiful China. The Ecological Environment Code is a landmark achievement made under the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, and it has major and far-reaching significance for advancing ecological civilization construction and accelerating the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

"Law is the beginning of governance." The Ecological Environment Code transforms scientific concepts such as "clear waters and green mountains are gold and silver mountains" and "protect the ecological environment with the strictest systems and the most rigorous rule of law" into legal norms with universal binding force, confirming the major principles, major deployments, and major requirements of ecological civilization construction in the new era in a codified form, achieving a high degree of unity between the Party's ecological civilization propositions, the will of the state, and the aspirations of the people. At the same time, it has fundamentally changed the previous situation in which individual laws "fought each on its own," constructed a governance pattern of "one chessboard," and carried out a systematic "upgrade and generational replacement" of the legal system in the ecological field.

Good law is the prerequisite for good governance. On the one hand, the Ecological Environment Code uses the most rigorous rule of law to hold the bottom line of ecological security, consolidate the ecological and environmental protection responsibilities of all types of subjects, and focus on solving the prominent ecological and environmental problems that the people urgently need and long for in practice; on the other hand, it elevates practical achievements such as green and low-carbon development, ecological compensation, and the realization of ecological product value into legal norms.

The vitality of law lies in its implementation. Implementing the provisions of the Ecological Environment Code among clear waters and green mountains, transforming institutional advantages into governance effectiveness, and better giving play to the rule of law's safeguarding role of consolidating foundations, stabilizing expectations, and benefiting the long term will powerfully promote China's ecological civilization construction and "light up with the Code" the modernization of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

Adhere to law-based administration and carry the spirit and content of the Code through the entire process of ecological environmental protection and governance. Law enforcement and judicial departments at all levels must thoroughly grasp the essential meaning of the Code's institutions, unify the standards of law enforcement and judicial adjudication, both crack down severely on acts that damage the ecological environment in accordance with the law, and also maintain a balance between regulation and service, guide enterprises to proactively carry out green transformation, and create a fair, stable, and predictable rule-of-law environment for green and low-carbon development.

Do a good job of supporting coordination so that the Code truly takes root and produces practical results. All regions and departments should, in accordance with the requirements of the Code, promptly carry out the cleanup and revision of local regulations and various normative documents, break down regional and departmental barriers, transform the provisions of the Ecological Environment Code into operable and implementable concrete measures, promote the integrated protection and systematic governance of mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, grasslands, and deserts in light of local conditions, and explore practical paths such as ecological environmental protection and restoration and the realization of ecological product value.

Strengthen publicity and education on the law and gather the joint governance force of the whole society. All regions and departments should make use of important time points such as National Ecological Day to explain clearly to the broad masses of the people the rights and obligations stipulated in the Code, let the Code enter factories, enterprises, communities, and villages, stimulate the endogenous motivation of the whole society to jointly care for the ecological environment, establish the concepts of respecting nature, conforming to nature, and protecting nature, and let every person become a protector, builder, and beneficiary of the ecological environment.

Demonstrate the wisdom of a major country and inject new momentum into global ecological protection. Ecological civilization construction concerns the future of humanity, and building a green homeland is the common dream of mankind. As an important participant, contributor, and leader in global ecological civilization construction, China has compiled and implemented the world's first code named after "ecological environment," actively responding to global ecological governance challenges such as environmental pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss, fully undertaking the responsibilities of a major country and demonstrating the commitment of a major country.

When ecology thrives, civilization thrives. This year marks the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," and the official implementation of the Ecological Environment Code is a new starting point for high-level rule of law to escort the construction of a Beautiful China. Adhering to Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization as the fundamental guideline for the implementation of the Code, adhering to the Party's overall leadership, maintaining strategic resolve in strengthening ecological civilization construction, governing according to law, and working hard and doing solid work will surely enrich the green foundation of Chinese-style modernization and unfold a splendid picture of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

Return to Top

PBOC to Issue Commemorative Coins for 100th Anniversary of Jiang Zemin's Birth

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, August 14 — The People's Bank of China issued an announcement on August 14 stating that it will successively issue commemorative coins for the 100th anniversary of Jiang Zemin's birth starting from August 17, 2026. The Jiang Zemin centennial commemorative coins total 4 pieces, including 1 regular commemorative coin, 2 gold commemorative coins, and 1 silver commemorative coin, all of which are legal tender of the People's Republic of China.

The obverse design of the Jiang Zemin centennial regular commemorative coin features the national emblem of the People's Republic of China, with the country name and year mark inscribed. The reverse design features a portrait of Comrade Jiang Zemin, with the inscriptions "100th Anniversary of Jiang Zemin's Birth," "1926—2026," and the denomination. The regular commemorative coin has a denomination of 1 yuan, a diameter of 25 millimeters, is made of nickel-plated steel core, and has an issuance quantity of 10 million pieces.

The Jiang Zemin centennial regular commemorative coin will be issued through a reservation-and-exchange method, with a per-person reservation and exchange limit of 20 pieces. The undertaking banks will handle reservation business from August 31 to September 1, 2026. The public may register through online channels such as the undertaking banks' official websites, or by visiting the reservation-and-exchange outlets announced by the undertaking banks during business hours. The undertaking banks will handle reservation exchange from October 13 to October 19, 2026.

The obverse designs of the gold and silver commemorative coins all feature the national emblem of the People's Republic of China, with the country name and year mark inscribed. The reverse design of the 30-gram round gold commemorative coin features a portrait of Comrade Jiang Zemin, with the inscriptions "100th Anniversary of Jiang Zemin's Birth," "1926—2026," and the denomination. The 30-gram round gold commemorative coin contains 30 grams of pure gold, has a diameter of 32 millimeters, a denomination of 500 yuan, and a maximum mintage of 1,000 pieces.

The reverse design of the 8-gram round gold commemorative coin features a photograph of Comrade Jiang Zemin's 1947 graduation from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, with the inscriptions "100th Anniversary of Jiang Zemin's Birth," "1926—2026," and the denomination. The 8-gram round gold commemorative coin contains 8 grams of pure gold, has a diameter of 22 millimeters, a denomination of 100 yuan, and a maximum mintage of 10,000 pieces.

The reverse design of the 30-gram round silver commemorative coin features a photograph of Comrade Jiang Zemin speaking at the "Three Emphases" (三讲) education meeting for leading cadres in Gaozhou City (高州市), Guangdong Province, in 2000, with the inscriptions "100th Anniversary of Jiang Zemin's Birth," "1926—2026," and the denomination. The 30-gram round silver commemorative coin contains 30 grams of pure silver, has a diameter of 40 millimeters, a denomination of 10 yuan, and a maximum mintage of 20,000 pieces.

Return to Top

40-meter breach closed in two days (On the Scene)

By: 本报记者 毕京津

On the evening of August 12, a breach occurred in the civilian dike along the Beiru River section in Changqiao Town, Jia County, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province, with the breach measuring more than 40 meters wide. After nearly two days and two nights of intense efforts by rescue and emergency personnel, the breach was successfully sealed at around 20:00 on August 14.

"The floodwaters overflowing from the breach did not reach residential housing. As of now, there have been no resident casualties," said Wang Yage (王亚鸽), director of the Peace Construction Office of Changqiao Town. The floodwaters submerged some surrounding farmland, but the breach sealing operation progressed steadily, and the situation at the site remained under control. Starting August 14, under the unified organization of local authorities, nearly 2,200 evacuated residents from around the breach area have gradually returned to their homes and resumed normal life.

At the rescue site, two temporarily erected concrete pump lines extended a hundred meters from the road beside the civilian dike, reaching directly to the breach. Construction personnel from the Jiaoping Expressway Xinxiang-Xiangcheng Section of China Energy Engineering Group Gezhouba Company operated concrete mixer trucks on site, with cement mortar continuously delivered to the breach through the pump lines.

"The mortar enters geotextile gabion bags and, under the effect of the setting agent, can solidify and take shape within minutes, sinking to the bottom of the water and resisting erosion from the current," said Su Baosong (宿保松), first-level supervisor of the Pingdingshan Municipal Fire and Rescue Detachment, who was in command at the site. Thanks to advanced construction equipment and effective organization, the breach sealing proceeded rapidly and in an orderly manner.

Under the unified dispatch of the National Fire and Rescue Administration and the emergency management departments of Henan Province, more than 2,800 rescue, emergency, and logistics support personnel converged on the front line, working in shifts and fighting continuously day and night.

The Pingdingshan Municipal fire and rescue teams fought side by side with relevant forces from the National Fire and Rescue Administration, equipped with a full range of modern personal protective equipment, off-road rescue vehicles, assault boats, and other gear, addressing various rescue needs including water search and rescue, embankment reinforcement, and emergency transport, thereby building a three-dimensional, modernized flood prevention and rescue system.

Fire and rescue personnel deployed 5G equipment at multiple points. Relying on the high-speed 5G network, real-time footage of the breach sealing and personnel operations was transmitted in high definition back to the National Fire and Rescue Administration in Beijing, enabling remote real-time dispatch and making rescue operations highly efficient and precise. China Unicom national emergency communications vehicles were stationed on site throughout the operation, ensuring smooth communications at the rescue site.

With forward-deployed prevention and control and scientific emergency response, the safety bottom line was safeguarded to the greatest extent. In response to this breach emergency, the Party committee and government of Jia County anticipated the risks, activated emergency plans, and organized the evacuation and resettlement of residents around the breach area. Ye Rui (叶锐), secretary of the Jia County Party Committee, who was commanding on site, stated that in the follow-up, all dikes along the Beiru River in Jia County will be further inspected and reinforced, and relevant departments and insurance companies will be coordinated to handle matters such as agricultural insurance claims for affected residents.

Return to Top

Multiple departments support Henan in responding to flood disasters.

The Central Meteorological Observatory forecasts that from the night of August 14 to August 15, some areas in the eastern part of the Jianghuai region, the eastern part of the Jiangnan region, and the eastern part of the South China region will still experience heavy rainfall. There will be rainfall weather in the northern regions. At 18:00 on the 14th, the Central Meteorological Observatory issued a meteorological risk warning for flooding of small and medium-sized rivers and continued to issue a yellow warning for torrential rain; the Ministry of Water Resources and the China Meteorological Administration jointly issued a yellow meteorological warning for mountain torrent disasters; the Ministry of Natural Resources and the China Meteorological Administration jointly issued a yellow meteorological risk warning for geological disasters.

A reporter learned from the Ministry of Water Resources: Affected by the remnant circulation of Typhoon "Dolphin" (白海豚), cold air, and the monsoon trough, it is expected that from the 14th to the 16th, southern Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, eastern and southern Anhui, most of Jiangxi, southern and western Fujian, and central and eastern Guangdong will experience heavy to torrential rain; among these, parts of southern Jiangsu, northeastern Zhejiang, and central Guangdong may experience extremely heavy rain. It is expected that the river network around Taihu Lake, the Chu River (滁河), a tributary of the lower Yangtze River, and the Lixia River (里下河) in Jiangsu, the Cao'e River (曹娥江) and Jiao River (椒江) along the Zhejiang coast, and the Beijiang River (北江) in Guangdong will all experience notable rising water processes, and some small and medium-sized rivers in the torrential rain area may experience floods exceeding warning levels. The Information Center of the Ministry of Water Resources upgraded and issued a yellow flood warning, reminding multiple localities to take precautions.

On the 14th, the National Commission for Disaster Prevention, Reduction and Relief activated a National Level IV disaster relief emergency response in response to the severe disaster impact of the remnant vortex of Typhoon "Dolphin" and heavy rainfall on Henan. On the same day, the Office of the National Commission for Disaster Prevention, Reduction and Relief and the Ministry of Emergency Management, together with the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, allocated 30,000 pieces of central disaster relief materials including folding beds, mattresses, blankets, summer quilts, summer clothing, and family emergency kits to support Henan in properly carrying out the resettlement and relief work for disaster-affected people; the Office of the National Flood Control Headquarters and the Ministry of Emergency Management, together with the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, allocated 100,000 woven bags, 500 flood-control lead wire nets, 15 rescue boats, and 1,000 life jackets and other central flood control materials to support Henan in carrying out flood resistance and emergency rescue work.

On the 14th, the National Development and Reform Commission urgently arranged 30 million yuan of central budget investment to support Henan in carrying out post-disaster emergency recovery from the torrential rain and flood disaster.

On the 14th, the Ministry of Transport maintained a Level III defense response for heavy rainfall and dispatched the Department of Transport of Jiangsu Province point-to-point, requiring that prevention and response work for continuous rainfall be solidly carried out.

(Compiled from reports by our correspondents Jiang Xuehong (蒋雪鸿), Deng Jianyang (邓剑洋), Liu Wenxin (刘温馨), Wang Donghui (王东辉), Liu Zhiqiang (刘志强), and Han Xin (韩鑫))

Return to Top

"Make the underlying colors of Chinese-style modernization more vibrant"

By: 本报记者

Ecological civilization construction is a fundamental plan concerning the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. A sound ecological environment is the most inclusive form of public wellbeing.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Place the building of a Beautiful China in a prominent position in the drive to build a strong country and realize national rejuvenation," and "add splendor to mountains and rivers, and make the background of Chinese modernization even more brilliant."
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed ecological civilization construction in a prominent position in overall work, coordinating the advancement of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and economic growth. China's ecological and environmental protection has undergone historic, transformative, and holistic changes. The building of a Beautiful China has made major strides, creating ecological miracles and green development miracles that have attracted worldwide attention.
The "Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China" takes effect on August 15. This is a code led by Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, with Chinese characteristics, reflecting the features of the times, reflecting the will of the people, and being systematic, standardized, and coordinated. It safeguards the building of a Beautiful China through the rule of law, marking the entry of China's ecological and environmental protection into the "codification" era.
In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," on the occasion of the fourth National Ecological Day on August 15, our reporters went to the front lines to explore the new developments behind four report cards: the renewable energy system, air quality improvement, forest resource growth, and the new energy industry chain, witnessing the new picture of Beautiful China construction.

Carbon Reduction —
In the first half of the year, renewable energy generation accounted for more than 40 percent for the first time
How much effect does one kilowatt-hour of green electricity have?
On the shore of the East China Sea, on tens of thousands of mu of reclaimed tidal flats, deep blue photovoltaic panel "formations" resemble a "blue mirror sea"; beneath the "formations," fish swim freely. Power generation above the panels, fish farming below the panels — harmonious coexistence.
This is the Zhejiang Wenzhou Taihan 550-megawatt fishery-solar complementary power generation project.
Wu Litao, manager of the Taihan Photovoltaic Power Station of China Three Gorges Corporation Zhejiang Branch, introduced that in the nearly five years since grid connection, the project has generated an average of approximately 790 million kilowatt-hours annually, which can meet the electricity needs of approximately 266,000 households. Compared with thermal power of equivalent generation, it is equivalent to saving approximately 235,000 tons of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 650,000 tons each year.
"Currently is the peak electricity consumption period, and green electricity has played a positive role." Xi Honglei, head of the Power Dispatching and Control Center of State Grid Wenzhou Power Supply Company, said that in August of the year before last and last year, the project's electricity integrated into the national grid was 98.5 million kilowatt-hours and 103 million kilowatt-hours respectively, well meeting part of the city's summer peak demand.
Carrying the sea breeze of the tidal flats and the scorching sunlight, green electricity travels northward through Wenzhou's main power grid, passing through the 500-kilovolt Rui'an substation, which has integrated Wenzhou's ten-million-kilowatt-level offshore wind power, photovoltaics, and other renewable energy sources, effectively strengthening Zhejiang Province's power mutual assistance and guarantee capacity.
Follow the grid deeper into the consumption side. In Yongjia County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, in the digital factory of Lixin Valve Group Co., Ltd., amid the roar of CNC machine tools, valve products are exported worldwide from here.
"The electricity we use for production is green electricity." Wang Qinai, chairman of the company, proudly displayed a green electricity certificate trading voucher. "This voucher is like a 'green pass,' helping us open up larger overseas markets. Last year, our company's foreign trade export volume increased by 15 percent year-on-year."
Renewable energy is shaping new competitive advantages and injecting new momentum for development.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "Accelerate the construction of a new energy system," "expand the application of green electricity," and "promote the high-quality development of China's new energy with greater efforts, provide safe and reliable energy security for Chinese modernization, and make greater contributions to building a clean and beautiful world."
The earnest instructions have been translated into concrete actions.
Photovoltaic panels spread across "deserts, Gobi, and barren lands" into a blue ocean, wind turbine "forests" stand tall on grasslands and mountain peaks, and transmission lines stretch thousands of miles surging with green momentum... Looking across the land of China, such magnificent scenes are increasing.
In the first half of this year, new renewable energy installations accounted for more than 70 percent of new additions, generation accounted for more than 40 percent for the first time, and coal power generation accounted for less than 50 percent for the first time — China's energy green and low-carbon transformation has achieved new breakthroughs; national green electricity trading volume increased by 6.6 percent year-on-year, with consumption potential further stimulated.
"Diverse green energy scenarios have taken root, making low-carbon transformation a distinctive feature of Qingdao's opening-up, and clean energy a new business card for 'Qingdao Manufacturing' in the international market." Zhou Lin, deputy director of the Management Committee of Qingdao SCO Demonstration Area and vice mayor of Jiaozhou City, said that based on its own resource endowments, the demonstration area is accelerating the pace of new energy layout. State Grid Qingdao Power Supply Company provides "one-to-one" dedicated services responding to demand in real time, fully consolidating the grid framework and ensuring the entire process of project grid connection. The Ligezhuang fishery-solar complementary project has taken root accordingly. Part of the "green electricity" generated by water-surface photovoltaics is integrated into the local grid nearby to serve production and daily life, while part is directly connected to green hydrogen production facilities, achieving on-site consumption and value conversion of clean energy.
The green and low-carbon transformation of energy is key to achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality. China has built the world's largest and fastest-growing renewable energy system, cooperating with more than 100 countries and regions on green energy projects, injecting surging momentum into the global energy transition.

Pollution Reduction —
In the first half of the year, the national average PM2.5 concentration decreased by 6.6 percent year-on-year
What environmental changes does a star trail photo reflect?
On a clear night, photographer Du Zhiguang came to the front of the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, aimed his camera lens at the starry sky, and set it to continuous shooting. Meteors streaked across the night sky, combining with the majestic palace architecture to present a stunning scene of shifting stars.
Du Zhiguang's journey of photographing star trails has recorded the trajectory of Beijing's air quality improvement.
"More than 10 years ago, the sky was often hazy, and it was not easy to take a star trail photo in urban Beijing." Du Zhiguang said that in those years, to photograph star trails, he often went at night to distant suburbs such as Huairou and Miyun, and by the time he finished and returned, it was often almost dawn.
PM2.5 source analysis, implementation of "coal-to-electricity" and "coal-to-gas" conversions, rectification of "scattered, polluted, and disorganized" enterprises, elimination of old vehicles... Beijing has treated air pollution control as a major livelihood project, grasping it firmly and practically, with notable results. In the first half of this year, Beijing's PM2.5 concentration was 31.6 micrograms per cubic meter, and the ratio of days with good air quality reached 79.6 percent.
"In the past two years, 'Beijing Blue' has become the norm, and photographing star trails in the urban area has become increasingly easy." Du Zhiguang has witnessed the changes brought by Beijing's air pollution control. "Today's Beijing has blue skies, clear water, and green land. Take out a camera, aim at the Grand Canal or Green Heart Park, and you can shoot stunning photos."
"Return blue skies, white clouds, and twinkling stars to the people," "return clear water, green banks, and fish swimming at the surface to the people," "retain for the people the pastoral scenery of birdsong and floral fragrance"... Ecology benefits the people, ecology serves the people, ecology is for the people. Since the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has led the people of the whole country in resolutely fighting the battle against pollution, with measures more concrete, efforts greater, and results more remarkable than ever before.
The "Ten Measures for Air," "Ten Measures for Water," and "Ten Measures for Soil" were successively introduced — from eliminating backward production capacity in coal, steel, and cement, to advancing clean heating renovation in northern regions; from promoting comprehensive water environment treatment, to reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and controlling soil environmental risks... Each scientific and pragmatic measure has gathered strong momentum for sustained攻坚, promoting continuous improvement of the ecological environment quality.
Since the new era, China has become the country with the fastest air quality improvement in the world. In the first half of this year, the national average PM2.5 concentration was 29.9 micrograms per cubic meter, down 6.6 percent year-on-year, and the average ratio of days with good air quality reached 82.8 percent. In the first half of the year, the proportion of surface water sections with Class I to III good quality nationwide reached 87.4 percent, with major physical and chemical indicators of the water environment basically equivalent to those of developed countries. The safe utilization of contaminated farmland and key construction land has been effectively guaranteed, and soil environmental risks have been effectively controlled.
The sky is bluer, the water is clearer, the soil is cleaner, and the mountains and rivers of the land are more colorful.
"The egrets are back, and Guitang River is clear." In the computer of Liu Ke, a civilian river chief in Changsha, Hunan Province, are stored comparison photos of Guitang River spanning 15 years. This year, Guitang River has egrets flying, clear water, and green banks. After systematic treatment, the water quality has stably reached Class III, and the "dragon ditch" has transformed into a national-level beautiful river and lake.
At the Fenhe Cultural and Ecological Scenic Area in Linfen City, Shanxi Province, graceful willows and a clear stream complement each other. Citizen Liu Chengtong, jogging by the river, remarked with emotion: "Over the years, watching our Linfen's sky turn from gray to blue and the river water from black to green, the environment has really changed dramatically!"
Beautiful ecological scenery around us is increasing, and the people's sense of environmental gain has been significantly enhanced. Looking to the future, the task of improving the ecological environment remains arduous. "We must fully implement precise, scientific, and law-based pollution control, improve ecological environment quality to a higher standard, and better support high-quality development." Xu Qigong, dean of the Environmental Planning Institute of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said.

Green Expansion —
The three landmark campaigns of the "Three-North" project have completed construction tasks on 244 million mu
How can a sea of roses lock sand and generate gold?
"Do you know that roses can be grown in the desert?" In Haderang Village, Aral Township, Yutian County, Xinjiang, Rukeyamu Wujiabula, head of the Hexie Desert Rose Planting Cooperative, set up her phone and began the day's livestream. Not far away, several refrigerated trucks started up, transporting dried rose petals to the trading market.
Rukeyamu said that in November 2024, the Taklamakan Desert edge-sealing project achieved closure, and the news that the desert had been given a "green scarf" went viral, with desert rose sales becoming increasingly brisk.
Over the years, the "Three-North" project has added greenery and halted desertification. Rukeyamu, who had suffered from wind and sand since childhood, returned to her hometown after graduating from university to start a business, leading fellow villagers to increase greenery and income. "We have developed more than 70 types of products, of which rose petal jam sells best, with annual sales of 1,500 tons; the rose product specialty store opened in the county seat averages 10,000 yuan in sales per day." Rukeyamu told reporters that the cooperative employs 42 villagers year-round, and during peak picking and processing seasons can drive 200 to 300 people to work, with each person able to earn an additional 2,500 yuan per month.
Desert roses are "blooming more and more beautifully." Last year, Yutian County's 80,000 mu of desert roses generated an output value of 237 million yuan, driving income increases for 5,441 farming households, while also reducing the movement of hundreds of thousands of tons of shifting sand.
Yutian County is not the only place expanding greenery and increasing income. As the "Three-North" project campaign advances in depth, the Taklamakan Desert's "green scarf" has expanded from a line to a large area, and the picture of green prosperity and shared affluence continues to unfold across the desert.
The "Three-North" region is the main battlefield for land greening. In the three years since the "Three-North" project campaign was launched, the three landmark campaigns have cumulatively completed construction tasks on 244 million mu, and the "Green Great Wall" is advancing northward and westward at a rate of approximately 2,000 square kilometers per year, becoming a breathtaking stroke of ecological color in the "Thousand-Mile Rivers and Mountains Scroll."
With the world's largest area of planted forests and contributing approximately 25 percent of the world's newly added greening area... since the new era, China has become the country with the most and fastest greening.
The birth of these green miracles fundamentally stems from the scientific guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and the institutional advantage of concentrating efforts to accomplish major tasks under socialism.
"Increasing greenery means increasing advantages; planting trees means planting the future," "make the mountains and rivers of the land green, and make the people's living environment beautiful"... Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has taken the lead, participating in capital city voluntary tree-planting activities for 14 consecutive years, emphasizing the need to "continuously thicken our 'green family assets.'"
"Under the new circumstances, advancing land greening should place greater emphasis on improving quality, revitalizing industries, and benefiting the people, achieving simultaneous management of planting and tending, joint promotion of ecology and industry, and coexistence of humans and nature." This year, General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech during the capital city voluntary tree-planting activity leads hundreds of millions of people to embark on a magnificent new green journey.
"Carrying out scientific large-scale land greening actions" has been incorporated into the Ecological Environment Code, and the "Forestry, Grassland, and Land Protection and Utilization '15th Five-Year Plan'" has been issued... In the opening year of the "15th Five-Year Plan," the whole nation is mobilized, everyone takes action, scientific greening is carried out, and the green map continues to expand.
Simultaneous management of planting and tending. In Xiong'an New Area, Hebei Province, the city of the future is consolidating its ecological foundation. The "Millennium Forest" prioritizes native tree species, building stable and healthy near-natural forest communities, with an intelligent monitoring network operating 24 hours a day and forest rangers conducting grid-based all-weather patrols. Greening quality continues to improve, and this year's new greenery is growing well.
Joint promotion of ecology and industry. In Wenwu Village, Yun County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province, coffee is grown under macadamia nut trees, and chickens and bees are raised in the forest, making the forest a "green savings book" for villagers. Beekeeper Luo Wenying said: "Income increases by 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per year."
"Plant trees for the people, create benefits for the masses" — more and more urban residents can "see green from their windows, have shade along the roads, and enter parks when going out," and the vast countryside is full of birdsong and floral fragrance, with pastoral scenery that is deeply appealing... Across the beautiful land of China, "coexistence of humans and nature" is gradually becoming a reality.

Growth —
New energy vehicle retail penetration rate exceeds 60 percent
What growth logic lies behind a new energy vehicle?
At Chery New Energy Vehicle Phase IV Factory in Yijiang District, Wuhu City, Anhui Province, automated assembly lines are bustling, with one complete vehicle rolling off the line every minute on average.
In the first half of this year, Chery's new energy vehicle sales increased by 32.3 percent year-on-year, with exports surging 164.9 percent year-on-year.
Chery's new energy vehicles are thriving in both production and sales, relying on the enterprise's efforts to tackle advanced technologies and firmly pursue green transformation, as well as strong external industrial system support.
"Our success is inseparable from the empowerment of the Yangtze River Delta '4-hour industrial circle' and the support of the local industrial chain." Zhang Qun, head of the Supplier Management Department of Chery Automobile Procurement Center, told reporters that Shanghai's chips, Zhejiang's die-cast parts, and Jiangsu's lithium batteries allow Chery to secure required supporting component supplies within a 4-hour drive in the Yangtze River Delta. With Chery as the leader, Wuhu City has gathered more than 2,000 upstream and downstream enterprises in the automotive and parts industry chain, forming a complete industrial chain from R&D and production to sales.
One vehicle drives one chain, one chain gathers a cluster, and complementary and efficient coordination allows Chery to "race ahead" on the new energy vehicle track.
In the first half of this year, China's new energy vehicle production and sales both exceeded 7 million units, with exports increasing by 120 percent year-on-year, and the retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles exceeded 60 percent from April to June. Behind this is China's construction of the world's largest and most complete new energy industry chain, supporting the world's largest-scale and fastest new energy vehicle promotion and application.
This is a strong chain, a long chain, and a new chain, "linking" out a thriving picture of pursuing green and embracing innovation — China produces more than 80 percent of the world's photovoltaic modules and 70 percent of wind power equipment, and during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period cumulatively reduced carbon emissions for other countries by approximately 4.1 billion tons. In the first half of this year, China's lithium battery export total increased by 43 percent year-on-year. From "following" to "leading," China's new energy vehicle production and sales have ranked first globally for 11 consecutive years...
The high-quality development of China's green industries, represented by the new energy industry chain, is closely related to the guidance of the green development concept.
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Promoting the green and low-carbon transformation of economic and social development is a key link in achieving high-quality development," and "we must adhere to the guidance of the 'dual carbon' goals and promote comprehensive green transformation."
The banner points the direction, and thought gathers strength. A profound transformation concerning development modes and lifestyles is flourishing across the land of China.
Production methods are moving toward "green."
At the Shanglin Lake Celadon Cultural Heritage Park in Cixi City, Zhejiang Province, electric potter's wheels operate in an orderly manner, smart panels precisely set firing parameters, and celadon has achieved standardized and scaled production. State Grid Cixi Power Supply Company proactively connects with enterprises to promote the upgrading of the celadon industry from wood-fired kilns and coal-fired kilns to electric kilns. The green transformation of this thousand-year intangible cultural heritage reflects the accelerating green and low-carbon transformation of traditional industries.
At the Zouping West Service Area on the Qingdao-Yinchuan Expressway, electric heavy trucks come and go frequently. State Grid Binzhou Power Supply Company in Shandong has built photovoltaic, energy storage, and charging pile facilities and formed a dedicated service team to support the large-scale application of new energy heavy trucks. In the first half of this year, national cumulative sales of new energy heavy trucks increased by 78.6 percent year-on-year.
Green energy, green production, and green transportation are flourishing, with a cumulative total of 8,336 national-level green factories and 616 green industrial parks cultivated... In today's China, the "green content" of economic and social development continues to rise.
Lifestyles are increasingly embracing "green" as a trend.
In Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, second-hand goods at an offline circular store are popular among young people; in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, citizens record green behaviors through the "carbon inclusive" platform and redeem rewards such as public transit card top-ups and scenic spot tickets... Across the land of China, water and electricity conservation, green travel, the "Clean Plate Campaign," and waste sorting — green and low-carbon lifestyles are gradually becoming the norm.
Territorial space is based on "green."
Through coordinated designation of ecological protection red lines, environmental quality bottom lines, and resource utilization upper limits, a comprehensive ecological environment zoning control system covering all areas has been established. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the water conservation capacity index within the national ecological protection red lines increased by 10.1 percent, the vegetation coverage index increased by 2.3 percent, and the protection rate of key biological species increased by 2.1 percent.
If humans are good to the mountains and rivers, the mountains and rivers will surely be good to humans. The comprehensive green transformation is profoundly changing China's development trajectory, injecting an inexhaustible source of green momentum into Chinese modernization.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical stage for expanding and improving the quality of Beautiful China construction and achieving a fundamental improvement in the ecological environment. Let us take Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization as our guide, fully implement and enforce the "Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China," seize the momentum, work hard and pragmatically, jointly paint a new picture of a Beautiful China with harmonious coexistence between humans and nature, and make the background of Chinese modernization even more brilliant!
(Our reporters Gu Zhongyang, Li Hongmei, Kou Jiangze, Dong Siyu, Dou Hanyang, Pan Junqiang, Jiang Xuehong)

Return to Top

Page One Editors: Hu Anqi, Zhang Shuaizhen, Luan Xinyi; Page Two Editors: Lyu Li, Guo Xueyan, Cui Bin; Page Three Editors: Wu Gang, Zhou Zhou, Xie Jianing; Page Four Editors: Liu Nian, Han Chunyao, Chen Zhen

Return to Top

Building livable cities where humanity and nature coexist in harmony (New Era Panorama · Building Modern People's Cities)

General Secretary Xi Jinping, during his inspection in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, emphasized that Hangzhou should "create more experience in building livable cities where humans and nature coexist in harmony and mutual prosperity" and "further tap the potential of urban development, accelerate the building of smart cities, and create more replicable experience for the whole country."
In recent years, Hangzhou has advanced the construction of various urban undertakings with high quality: urban renewal has stimulated vitality, grassroots governance has been filled with warmth, and technology has empowered the building of smart cities.
Let parks become green spaces shared by the people. Hangzhou has a total of 747 urban parks included in its directory, and the per capita park green space area in the municipal area reaches 15.5 square meters.
Carry forward the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage such as traditional handicrafts. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Hangzhou added 3 items of intangible cultural heritage recognized by humanity and 12 representative inheritors of national-level intangible cultural heritage. The "Wonderful Tour of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Hangzhou, an Ancient Capital with a Thousand-Year Cultural Heritage" was selected for the national intangible cultural heritage tourism routes.
Make the city smarter and more intelligent. Hangzhou has continuously promoted the construction of complete communities (future communities), cumulatively launching 576 construction projects and completing 476, benefiting more than 4.92 million residents; it has deepened the application of "artificial intelligence +," continuously improving the efficiency of community services and grassroots governance, and accelerating the promotion of complete communities as a universal form accessible to all people and visible across the entire region.
From the "micro-renovation" of old residential communities, to the "ecological stitching" of urban greenways, to the "minimally invasive surgery" of underground pipeline networks... During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, Hangzhou will strive to advance the construction of the "three cities" — a delivery-rider-friendly city, a vibrant and well-governed city, and a city of the warmest volunteers — and concentrate its efforts on building a new highland of grassroots governance for megacities.
(Our reporter Liu Junguo (刘军国))

Return to Top

Zhang Yanchun, Song Yu, Zhang Zhiqi

I notice you've provided the translation instructions and a formatting credit line, but the actual Chinese document to be translated appears to be missing from your message. The only Chinese text I can see is:

版式设计：张芳曼

This appears to be a layout/design credit line. Could you please provide the full Chinese document you'd like me to translate? Once you share the source text, I'll translate it according to your detailed instructions.

Return to Top

How Much Longer Must We Wait for Such Promising Hydrogen Energy? (Academicians Explain Science · Future Industries)

Hydrogen energy is one of the key development areas for the future identified in the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan. Hydrogen is not only an important industrial raw material, but also an important medium with the capacity for large-scale, long-cycle, and cross-seasonal energy storage. It can also be flexibly converted among electrical, thermal, and chemical energy, making it an important carrier connecting renewable energy with terminal energy-consuming sectors such as industry, transportation, and construction. In this installment of "Academicians Explain Science," we invite Ma Ding, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ding Wenjiang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Xie Heping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, to provide in-depth interpretation of the entire process of hydrogen production, storage and transportation, and application, and to explain the significance of hydrogen energy in the green and low-carbon energy transition and the cultivation of future industries.
　　——Editor

　　Green hydrogen production, consolidating the foundation of the hydrogen energy industry
　　Ma Ding
　　Hydrogen production sits at the source of the hydrogen energy industry chain. Accelerating scientific and technological innovation in green hydrogen production is foundational work for cultivating the hydrogen energy industry. Developing green hydrogen can open new pathways for the cross-regional and cross-cycle utilization of renewable energy, enabling hydrogen energy to play a "buffer" role in the energy system. It also helps transform domestic resource advantages into more stable and readily dispatchable energy and industrial raw materials, enhancing the resilience of the energy supply system.
　　To achieve this goal, the first issue to address is the green source of hydrogen. China is a major producer and consumer of hydrogen and has already formed a relatively complete industrial foundation. However, the existing hydrogen sources are still dominated by hydrogen production from fossil resources such as coal and natural gas, which places considerable pressure on carbon emissions. In recent years, renewable energy hydrogen production projects have been accelerated in their deployment, and the manufacturing capacity of water electrolysis hydrogen production equipment has continued to improve. Nevertheless, the share of green hydrogen in overall supply remains limited, and some projects still face difficulties such as the large distance between resource sites and consumption sites, low utilization levels, and insufficient downstream demand.
　　Hydrogen production technology pathways are diverse and need to be scientifically selected based on resource conditions and application scenarios. Coal-to-hydrogen and natural gas-to-hydrogen technologies are mature and still bear the main supply task at the current stage. Energy utilization efficiency should be continuously improved and process emissions reduced, and where conditions permit, synergy with carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies can be explored. Water electrolysis hydrogen production powered by renewable energy is the key direction for green hydrogen production. China's alkaline electrolysis equipment already has a relatively good industrial foundation. The next step is to improve operating efficiency and stability under the fluctuating conditions of wind and solar power. Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis has a relatively fast dynamic response and has advantages in coupling with wind and solar power, but it has a relatively strong dependence on precious metals and key materials. Frontier pathways such as direct solar hydrogen production, thermochemical cycles, and biological hydrogen production still face problems in conversion efficiency, material stability, and scale manufacturing, and require sustained investment and strategic patience. Coastal regions can also rely on offshore wind power to prudently explore integrated utilization models such as hydrogen production, ammonia production, and methanol production at sea.
　　The path of green hydrogen production toward large-scale application cannot be separated from breakthroughs in basic research. In recent years, we have started from the regulation of metal-support catalytic interfaces to explore solutions to the problem that the activity and stability of hydrogen production catalysts are difficult to reconcile. In methanol-water reforming hydrogen production, protecting key interfaces through nanoscale overlayers achieves long-term stable operation with low precious metal loading. In bio-ethanol hydrogen production, regulating the catalytic interface changes the reaction pathway, enabling the co-production of acetic acid alongside hydrogen production, so that more of the carbon in the feedstock is converted into useful chemicals. These studies demonstrate that green hydrogen production should not focus only on individual performance metrics, but must also coordinate long-term stability, resource utilization efficiency, and whole-process emission reduction, exploring more efficient and low-carbon technological pathways from the reaction source.
　　The next 5 to 10 years will be a critical period for green hydrogen production to move from demonstration and validation toward large-scale application. First, it is necessary to improve the efficiency, lifespan, and safety of hydrogen production systems under fluctuating conditions, and to strengthen the linkage among basic research, pilot-scale validation, and engineering demonstration, so that new technologies can withstand the test of real operating conditions and long-term operation. It is also necessary to use existing demand from oil refining, synthetic ammonia, and methanol as the driving force, steadily expand applications such as hydrogen metallurgy, and promote the coordinated layout of green electricity, green hydrogen, and downstream industries.
　　Green hydrogen production is a systematic project that requires long-term accumulation. Only by adhering to scientific demonstration, adapting measures to local conditions, and advancing steadily can scientific and technological innovation advantages be transformed into industrial development advantages. The Chinese approach to green hydrogen production should be based on China's resource endowment and industrial foundation, connecting original innovation, equipment manufacturing, and application demand. It is necessary to leverage the advantages of renewable energy and the manufacturing system, shore up the shortcomings in key materials, core components, and system integration, promote the continuous cost reduction and efficiency improvement of mature technologies, and at the same time maintain stable investment in basic research and frontier exploration.
　　(The author is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering of Peking University. This article was compiled by our reporter Wu Dan.)

　　Solid-state hydrogen storage, "locking" hydrogen into magnesium alloys
　　Ding Wenjiang
　　When hydrogen burns, it only "leaves behind" water, which from an environmental perspective makes it an excellent clean energy source. But it has a fatal weakness — hydrogen has a very low density at room temperature, and for the same amount of energy, its volume is more than 2,700 times that of gasoline. It is also prone to explosion when exposed to open flames, so explosion-proof requirements are especially stringent.
　　How should hydrogen be stored and transported, and how should it be put to good use? There are currently two mainstream pathways: compressing hydrogen into steel cylinders at 200–300 standard atmospheres of pressure, where a 49-ton long-tube trailer can only transport 250–300 kilograms of hydrogen when fully loaded, with low efficiency and risks of leakage, combustion, and explosion; and cryogenic liquid hydrogen storage, which requires cooling to minus 253 degrees Celsius, with high energy consumption and difficulty in thermal insulation and sealing. The storage and transportation link often consumes 30%–50% of the total cost of the hydrogen energy industry chain and is the bottleneck for large-scale hydrogen application.
　　In recent years, we have found the pathway of solid-state hydrogen storage from magnesium alloys. Magnesium-based solid-state hydrogen storage materials store hydrogen like a sponge absorbing water. Hydrogen is "fed" into the interstitial spaces of the magnesium alloy lattice, becoming stable magnesium hydride, which "locks" the hydrogen inside, allowing it to remain safely stable at room temperature and pressure without the need for high pressure or low temperature. When needed, with slight heating, the magnesium alloy slowly "releases" the hydrogen, and this process can be cycled repeatedly. The magnesium-based hydrogen storage material we developed has a measured hydrogen absorption capacity exceeding 6.8% and a cycle life exceeding 3,000 cycles. More importantly, this solid-state hydrogen storage method provides guaranteed safety — even if the tank is damaged by impact, the hydrogen will only escape slowly and will not spray out and explode instantaneously like a high-pressure gas cylinder.
　　China has uniquely advantageous conditions for developing magnesium-based solid-state hydrogen storage. Magnesium mainly comes from the smelting of magnesium ores. China's comprehensive reserves of magnesium ores and salt lake magnesium account for more than 70% of the global total, and raw magnesium production accounts for about 90% of the global total. In the preparation of magnesium materials, resources are completely self-controllable. However, magnesium materials have their own "temperament" — they are reactive and prone to oxidation, and they undergo volume expansion when absorbing and releasing hydrogen, which once led to the belief that they could not be engineered. Our team has gradually advanced magnesium-based hydrogen storage from the laboratory to engineering application through pathways such as reducing reaction temperature through multi-element alloying, designing porous bulk structures to buffer expansion and contraction, and establishing hydrogen-thermal coupling models to optimize energy efficiency. In magnesium-based solid-state hydrogen storage and transportation technology, China is already at the internationally leading level.
　　Of course, solid-state hydrogen storage and transportation has not yet reached the stage where it can be deployed at will. The magnesium-hydrogen bond is relatively strong, and the ideal hydrogen release temperature range remains around 300 degrees Celsius. Although alloying has substantially reduced the operating temperature range, compact and efficient heat supply and removal under rapid start-stop conditions in vehicles, as well as system lightweighting, still require breakthroughs. At the current stage, it is more suitable for fixed energy storage, long-distance hydrogen transportation, and hydrogen refueling station buffering, while direct installation on vehicles requires further weight reduction. In addition, the upstream of the industry chain needs to be matched with wind and solar water electrolysis to produce "green hydrogen" in order to achieve true zero carbon, and hydrogen refueling stations, standards and specifications, and safety certification also need to keep pace.
　　Under the "dual carbon" goals, green hydrogen production, solid-state storage and transportation, and diversified applications are important levers for the energy transition. China's magnesium resource endowment, material accumulation, and equipment manufacturing capabilities are combined, giving it the conditions to build magnesium-based solid-state hydrogen storage into a competitive industry with independent intellectual property rights. It took more than 20 years for magnesium-based hydrogen storage to go from concept to prototype, and from prototype to industry there is still another journey to travel. Locking the lightest hydrogen into magnesium metal and delivering clean energy to every household efficiently and safely is our dream.
　　(The author is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Hydrogen Science Center at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This article was compiled by our reporter Huang Xiaohui.)

　　"Extracting" hydrogen from the sea, enriching the full-chain application scenarios
　　Xie Heping
　　The industrial sector is the main battlefield where green hydrogen will first achieve large-scale application. In the steel industry, hydrogen can replace coke as a reducing agent, promoting the low-carbon transformation of smelting processes. In the transportation sector, hydrogen fuel cells have unique advantages in scenarios requiring long endurance, high load capacity, and rapid refueling, and can be focused on heavy-duty trucks, urban buses, and logistics distribution, with gradual expansion to ships and aircraft. The low-altitude economy has also opened new space for hydrogen energy — hydrogen-powered drones have long endurance and fast refueling, and can be widely applied in marine patrol, power grid line inspection, emergency rescue, and other missions. In the energy system, hydrogen energy can operate in coordination with wind power and photovoltaics, achieving large-scale, long-cycle, and even cross-seasonal energy storage, and enhancing the regulation capability of the new-type power system. In microgrids, hydrogen fuel cells can also provide combined heat and power, serving as backup power for important facilities such as data centers and hospitals.
　　Large-scale development of green hydrogen requires simultaneously solving the problems of green electricity and freshwater resources. Some of China's regions rich in wind and solar energy resources have relatively scarce freshwater resources, while the ocean holds about 97% of the Earth's water resources and also gathers abundant renewable energy such as offshore wind and solar power. It can be said that the ocean is the world's largest "hydrogen mine," and direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production holds the promise of converting the inexhaustible seawater resources into green energy. However, direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production is not easy. Seawater has a very complex composition, and direct electrolysis faces difficulties such as chlorine evolution side reactions, catalyst deactivation, and electrolyzer corrosion. Existing seawater hydrogen production methods find it difficult to fundamentally "resist" the toxicity and corrosiveness caused by the complex composition of seawater, and are even less able to support long-term stable operation in real marine environments.
　　Our team has blazed a new trail by combining physical and mechanical processes such as molecular diffusion and interfacial phase equilibrium with electrochemical reactions, and innovatively proposed the principle and technology of phase-transition-migration-driven direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production without desalination — through a selective phase separation interface, only water molecules are allowed to pass through, while salt ions and impurities are completely blocked, achieving direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production as if it were pure water, without desalination and without additional energy consumption. This original technology has achieved stable operation for more than 3,200 hours in real seawater, with the relevant results published in Nature, and has successfully completed the world's first offshore wind-powered seawater direct electrolysis hydrogen production sea trial without desalination in Xinghua Bay, Fujian. We are now further incorporating the coupled effects of multiple factors in the real marine environment into the engineering technology demonstration system for direct seawater electrolysis hydrogen production.
　　With the development of in-situ seawater electrolysis hydrogen production technology, it is expected that in the future an integrated model of "generating electricity on site, taking water on site, and producing hydrogen on site" can be realized in the ocean. In the far and deep sea, offshore wind power, photovoltaics, and direct seawater electrolysis hydrogen production can form a multi-energy complementary system. The hydrogen produced can be transported to land through pipelines or by ship, can also be converted in situ into products that are easier to store and transport such as ammonia and methanol, and can also directly supply energy to offshore platforms, oceangoing vessels, cruise ships, and islands. The resulting full-chain system of "offshore renewable energy — seawater hydrogen production — hydrogen-based fuels" can not only reduce the pressure of long-distance power transmission, but may also give rise to a complete industrial chain from offshore renewable energy development, seawater hydrogen production, to hydrogen-based fuel production and transportation, expanding the space for marine energy development.
　　As marine development continues to extend toward the far and deep sea, sea-based hydrogen-powered drones can also rely on wind power platforms and offshore hydrogen production facilities to form networked operation nodes, carrying out high-frequency, automated equipment inspection, maritime supervision, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue missions. This model of coordinated development between energy supply and low-altitude equipment is expected to reduce the time and cost of traditional long-distance round trips by ships, and improve the operation and maintenance of far and deep sea infrastructure and the capacity for emergency response.
　　I believe that through collaborative innovation in basic research, equipment manufacturing, and application scenarios, China will continuously improve the complete industrial chain from direct seawater electrolysis hydrogen production to hydrogen-based fuel utilization, providing strong strategic support for safeguarding national energy security, promoting the green and low-carbon transition, and building a new-type energy system.
　　(The author is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chair of the Academic Committee of Sichuan University. This article was compiled by our reporter Song Haoxin.)

Return to Top

Oysters Are Marine Engineering 'Restorers' (Science Chat)

By: 吕建福

When it comes to oysters, what comes to mind? Many people may first think of a delicacy on the dining table, but in the marine ecosystem, they are truly 名副其实 (míng fù qí shí - "the name matches the reality," worthy of the name) "protection experts" and "ecological restoration specialists."

The cross-sea bridge piers and breakwaters in the ocean — these seemingly sturdy structures are in fact constantly subjected to wave erosion, seawater corrosion, and continuous attack by microorganisms and burrowing organisms. If not properly maintained, within just a few years they may develop cracks and rust, which not only entails high maintenance costs but may also damage the marine ecology.

Research has found that the unremarkable oyster could become a capable assistant in protecting marine engineering. Oysters like to settle on hard surfaces, and by secreting special biological glue, they firmly attach themselves to reef or concrete surfaces, gradually forming a hard shell layer. Even more remarkable, once attached, they can integrate with the concrete to form a dense biological protective layer, just like donning a suit of armor for marine engineering.

Through oyster attachment induction technology, we have put a biological "golden bell jar" on marine engineering, which both extends the service life of the project and restores the ecological environment. The structure formed after oyster attachment is equivalent to building a small-scale "artificial oyster reef," attracting fish, shrimp, crabs, and other species to inhabit it, gradually forming a complete ecological chain and turning a single concrete structure into a vibrant "biological paradise."

However, getting oysters to "take up their post" is not easy. As the marine ecological environment changes, the natural hard surfaces available for oyster attachment are becoming fewer and fewer. This causes them to either cluster together on natural hard surfaces or struggle to survive. The cement-based induction material technology developed by our team precisely solves this problem — customizing an "exclusive living environment" for oysters and turning concrete surfaces into places where oysters are happy to settle.

The chemical composition, surface color, and texture of this special cement material have all been carefully designed. After being applied to marine engineering surfaces, it can precisely attract oyster larvae to attach. By regulating the material formula and construction techniques, the attachment density can also be controlled, avoiding both excessive density that would hinder growth and excessive sparseness that would reduce the protective effect. Moreover, this material has good synergy with concrete and can further protect the main structure.

Do not underestimate this layer of "oyster armor" — its protective capability is no less than current mainstream anti-corrosion measures. Moreover, this biological protective layer is entirely a natural product, zero-pollution, and self-repairing. If fine cracks appear on the surface, the biological glue secreted by oysters and newly attached individuals can gradually fill them in. In a pilot project on a breakwater in a certain bay in China, after only 3 months of using the induction material, oyster attachment coverage exceeded 95%; after 5 years, the concrete corrosion rate in these areas had decreased by more than 70%.

Marine ecological restoration has always been a worldwide challenge, and the economic losses caused by marine corrosion globally each year are enormous. This innovative technology of China both meets the needs of engineering protection and contributes to advancing the realization of the "dual carbon" goals, vividly embodying the concept of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.

The small oyster not only satisfies our taste buds and nutritional needs but is also a "meritorious contributor" to safeguarding marine engineering and restoring marine ecology. This shows us the enormous potential of technology and nature working hand in hand — when humanity learns to "borrow strength" from nature, we can achieve sustainable development while protecting the environment. We believe that more new technologies will emerge in the future, making the ocean cleaner and our blue home more beautiful.

(The author is a professor at the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Harbin Engineering University; compiled by our reporter Guo Xiaolong)

Return to Top

Chinese scientists discover corrugated fold structures in the outer gas disk of the Milky Way

NANJING — (Reporter Yao Xueqing) Using carbon monoxide molecular line survey data from China's 13.7-meter millimeter-wavelength telescope, the "Milky Way Panorama" research team of the Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has for the first time discovered widely distributed ripple-like corrugated structures in the molecular gas outer disk of the Milky Way. These corrugations are superimposed on the known large-scale warp, indicating that the Milky Way's outer disk is not merely smoothly curved, but rather a complex system composed of a warp and multi-scale vertical undulations. The research findings were recently published in Nature Astronomy.

The research team confirmed more than 30,000 molecular cloud samples from the survey data, first quantitatively constructed a warp model of the outer disk, and subtracted this large-scale curved background. In the residual map, clear ripple-like undulations — corrugations — emerged. These corrugations are widely present in the molecular outer disk, with radial wavelengths of approximately 3.9 to 7.9 kiloparsecs and vertical amplitudes of approximately 100 to 200 parsecs.

Scientists analyze that such large-scale vertical undulations may originate from "bending waves" excited by external gravitational perturbations. This suggests that the Milky Way's outer disk may have experienced more diverse internal and external interactions in its evolutionary history, such as perturbations from satellite galaxies like dwarf galaxies. The Milky Way's own spiral arm structure may further modulate the morphology of these ripples and leave structural traces in the cold molecular gas.

"The important value of this research lies in the fact that, for the first time, it reveals the fine structural characteristics of the cold molecular gas in the Milky Way's outer disk from an overall scale, which is of great significance for in-depth understanding of the Milky Way's spiral arm structure, disk plane dynamical evolution, and the history of external perturbations," said Yang Ji, researcher at the Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Return to Top

Scientists discover first carnivorous plant species in order Saxifragales

Our newspaper's Kunming dispatch (reporter Zhang Chi): A reporter recently learned from the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院昆明植物研究所) that Academician Sun Hang's (孙航) team at the institute, in collaboration with domestic and international researchers, has confirmed that the lamp-stand saxifrage (灯架虎耳草), distributed in the Hengduan Mountains region (横断山区) on the southeastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, possesses the complete carnivorous function of attracting and capturing insects, and digesting and absorbing nutrients from insects. This is the first carnivorous plant species confirmed to date in the angiosperm order Saxifragales.

The lamp-stand saxifrage is mainly distributed in subalpine environments of southwestern Sichuan and northern Yunnan in China, often growing in nutrient-poor rock crevices. Its entire plant is densely covered with sticky glandular hairs, and small insects can often be seen adhering to the plant surface. Through odor and visual blocking experiments, the research team found that the floral odor signals of the lamp-stand saxifrage participate in the process of attracting insects. After insects approach the plant, the sticky glandular hairs densely covering the inflorescence constitute a sticky-capture type trap similar to "sticky paper." The research found that the captured insects are mainly small insects such as those of the family Chironomidae.

The research team also completed chromosome-level genome assembly of the lamp-stand saxifrage and compared it with carnivorous plants such as sundew (Drosera) and pitcher plant (Nepenthes). The results show that multiple independently evolved carnivorous plant lineages present convergent evolution signals in genes related to functions such as mucus secretion, prey digestion, and nutrient processing, providing genome-level evidence for the evolution of carnivory in the lamp-stand saxifrage.

Return to Top

Editor: Xiao Yao, Chen Shihan, Yin Yan

Layout design: Wang Zheping (汪哲平) Zhang Danfeng (张丹峰)

Return to Top

Archaeology lets us re-understand ancient economies

By: 宋晓航 郎剑锋

A single carbonized grain of millet has slept in an ash pit for several thousand years. It is black, so ordinary that it would hardly draw anyone's attention. Yet it is precisely such an unremarkable grain that marks the beginning of our understanding of the ancient Chinese economy.

In the familiar historical narrative, the ancient economy seems to advance along a clear developmental path—after agriculture emerged, fishing, hunting, and gathering gradually receded; as the state grew stronger, the importance of the family correspondingly diminished; once markets arose, currency and commerce became the mainstays of economic activity. New institutions constantly appeared, old ones constantly disappeared, and society thus moved step by step toward greater complexity.

However, the history revealed by archaeological discoveries is far richer than this linear picture.

During the Houli Culture period in Shandong, the ancestors relied mainly on gathering, hunting, and other means to obtain plant and animal resources; by the Beixin Culture period, millet and foxtail millet agriculture had become an important livelihood. But stable isotope analysis of human bones and animal bones simultaneously shows that aquatic resources from rivers and lakes did not withdraw from people's lives as agriculture developed. The large quantities of water caltrops unearthed at the Tianluoshan site in Yuyao, Zhejiang, are also difficult to simply interpret as the result of natural gathering. Archaeobotanical research suggests that local residents likely managed wetlands over the long term, making water caltrops a stable food source. During the agro-pastoral transition in the Great Wall belt, different livelihood strategies—agriculture, herding, hunting—also did not replace one another, but rather were continuously readjusted in combination as environmental conditions changed.

The evolution of the ancient economy was not a simple matter of "the new replacing the old." New modes of production and organization were continuously added, while原有的 ways continued to function. For ancient people, one more livelihood meant one more way to cope with risk. The coexistence of agriculture, fishing and hunting, gathering, and herding does not mean the economy was immature; rather, it precisely reflects the adaptive capacity formed through long-term practice.

A single grain of millet thus leads to the question that economic archaeology truly cares about. It is concerned not only with what ancient people produced, but also with understanding how people allocated resources, why they made certain choices, and how these choices affected society as a whole. As the scale of society expanded, resource allocation extended from sustaining daily livelihoods to the state's mobilization of raw materials, food, labor, and ritual consumption.

From the Erlitou period through the Shang and Zhou dynasties, this change became especially clear. Important raw materials such as copper, tin, lead, and turquoise continuously flowed toward political centers, passed through large-scale handicraft workshops, and were ultimately cast into ritual vessels and weapons. At the same time, important food resources such as rice, sheep, and cattle also flowed increasingly toward political centers, where they were concentrated for aristocratic banquets, sacrifices, and ritual consumption. The direction of resource flows not only reflected production and supply but also participated in the shaping of power space and social hierarchy.

Yet the state's integration of resources did not replace the economic units of grassroots society. Western Zhou bronze inscriptions and archaeological materials show that land, livestock, labor, and a considerable amount of handicraft production were still managed by lineage organizations. The state undertook the integration and dispatch of key resources, while lineages maintained a large share of daily productive activities; the two cooperated to jointly sustain the functioning of society.

The development of currency and markets likewise did not proceed along a simple evolutionary path.

The stamped marks on Chu state gold currency not only reflect weight and fineness but also embody the credit guarantee provided by political authority. They remind us that currency was not necessarily merely a tool of market exchange; it may also have served payment, tribute, reward, and fiscal administration.

The Zhonghang site within the ancient city of Zheng-Han in Henan takes the question further toward the market. There, relatively large-scale handicraft production and frequent material flows existed, and materials such as pottery measures and cattle ribs bearing ink-written characters were once readily understood as evidence of market activity. Settlement archaeology research, however, shows that they may also reflect the internal distribution of materials, product accounting, and administrative management within official workshops. What needs to be distinguished is whether these flows relied on market exchange or on other mechanisms such as administrative allocation and institutional management. The identification of markets is also an important issue facing global economic archaeology today.

Research on the sources of stone materials at the Liangchengzhen site in Shandong suggests that during the Longshan period, a "multi-level settlement exchange network model" may have existed among ordinary settlements, though this interpretation still awaits verification through more evidence of provenance and circulation. At minimum, it reminds us that the long-distance movement of ordinary stone materials was not necessarily organized directly by political centers or a small elite.

The development of the ceramics industry from the 7th to the 17th century gradually evolved from a "grouping model" to a stage in which the "division-of-labor model" occupied an important position, with the overlap and transition of a "shared kiln zone model" also present in between. These organizational forms did not simply replace one another, but developed in interlocking fashion across different regions and periods, jointly supporting the large-scale ceramic production of pre-industrial society.

Connecting these materials, an important characteristic gradually emerges: the developmental trend of the ancient economy was toward increasing richness. A complex economic system could simultaneously contain state levies, lineage management, kinship mutual aid, local exchange, market trade, and long-distance circulation. Different organizational forms assumed different functions, and no single mechanism could alone sustain the whole of society.

Today, archaeological surveys, stable isotope analysis, archaeobotany and zooarchaeology, elemental analysis, spatial analysis, and statistical methods provide economic archaeology with a richer body of evidence. Houses, tombs, and grave goods cannot be directly equated with wealth, but they can help us observe long-term changes in wealth disparity. How to use these materials to conduct more rigorous quantitative comparison is becoming a direction worth advancing. Scholars have already attempted to calculate Gini coefficients using indicators such as house floor area and tomb size to analyze wealth inequality across different periods and regions. Social resilience has also become a new research focus. Livelihood portfolios, resource reserves, and exchange networks all affect how a society performs in the face of disaster; but discussing resilience cannot stop at whether a society recovers—one must also ask who bears the cost of recovery.

China possesses an agricultural civilization, early states, and handicraft systems with long continuity and rich materials, providing a unique observational window for understanding pre-industrial society. These materials can not only deepen our understanding of the ancient Chinese economy, but can also test the conditions under which theories of state finance, currency credit, market formation, wealth inequality, and social resilience hold, thereby promoting the revision and refinement of these theories. Many existing general explanations are built primarily on cases from the Mediterranean, the Americas, and other regions; the different historical experiences provided by Chinese materials can expand the scope of our understanding of pre-industrial economies.

Economic archaeology allows us to see that the ancient economy was not a simple precursor to the modern economy, but a complex system constituted by multiple mechanisms. Starting from these minute yet real material remains, we are re-understanding the ancient economy and continuously enriching our understanding of the laws governing the operation of human society.

(Author's affiliation: School of Archaeology, Shandong University (Institute of Cultural Heritage))

Return to Top

The wisdom of flood control and drainage in the ancient city of Nanjing (Exploring past and present)

By: 李新建

The 5,000-plus-year history of Chinese civilization is, in a sense, a history of struggle to live with water and to strengthen the nation through water management. Nanjing, an ancient capital of six dynasties, was built along the river and has a city-building history of approximately 3,100 years, accumulating profound urban wisdom in flood control and drainage that provides valuable historical reference for urban water disaster governance in the new era.
Whether it is the old city of Nanjing first built in the Spring and Autumn period, the old city of Luhe first built in the Han dynasty, the old city of Lishui first built in the Sui and Tang dynasties, or the old city of Gaochun from the Ming dynasty, every successive city site in Nanjing was without exception located on the convex bank of a river, presenting a spatial pattern of a "jade belt encircling the waist." This was not an accidental aesthetic choice, but a scientific decision consistent with the river dynamics principle of "deposition on convex banks, erosion on concave banks" — on the convex bank, water flow is slow and sediment accumulates, so the city foundation can be stable. City walls were built on riverside elevated terrain or first-level river terraces, both above the general flood level to avoid flood disasters and convenient for water intake, use, and drainage. The Yangtze River runs across, the Qinhuai River meanders, Zhongshan Mountain coils like a dragon, and Stone City crouches like a tiger — with natural moat barriers defending against external enemies and convenient waterways connecting to the river and sea for overall control, the ancestors maximized the comprehensive utilization of water resources for water intake, military defense, flood control and drainage, and shipping and trade.
In the low hills of Nanjing, the ancestors connected originally separate water systems by cutting ridge-crossing canals, demonstrating remarkable regional coordination. The Xuxi River was excavated under the supervision of Wu Zixu during the Spring and Autumn period, crossing the watershed between Lake Taihu and the Shuiyang River system to connect the two major basins, enabling the Wu state's naval forces to take the enemy by surprise and capture the Chu capital. This thousand-year-old ancient canal, 20 years older than the ancient Hangou, subsequently experienced the stepped navigation of the "Luyang Five Dams" in the late Tang dynasty, the water regulation of the Guangtong Town stone locks in the early Ming dynasty, and the flood control and consolidation of stone dams in the Daoguang period of the Qing dynasty, until the completion and opening of the modern Xiaba ship lock, becoming an important hub of the Wushen Canal and embodying the spirit of adapting to the times and continuous innovation.
Pogangdu began in the Three Kingdoms period, when Sun Quan dispatched 30,000 soldiers to cut through the Jurong ridge, connecting the Qinhuai River and Lake Taihu basins and linking to the Grand Canal. To solve the huge water level difference on both sides of the ridge, the ancestors creatively built 14 dams, forming stepped navigation channels, using human and animal power to tow boats over the dams — an outstanding ancient case of solving navigation across high elevation differences.
The Yanzhi River began in the early Ming dynasty, when the Marquis of Chongshan, Li Xin, was ordered to cut through the watershed between Shijiu Lake and the Qinhuai River to strengthen grain transport to the capital. Using the traditional method of "fire burning and water quenching," craftsmen spent two years cutting a channel 30 meters deep and more than 10 meters wide at the bottom through a 5-kilometer ridge, and skillfully created the unique landscape of the "Natural Bridge." The Yanzhi River and the Xuxi River together formed a great project of water transport integration across Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, and remain to this day a masterpiece combining engineering technology and landscape art.
Nanjing's urban layout and river systems developed in long-term interaction. The Jiankang city of the Six Dynasties was located between the Qinhuai River and Xuanwu Lake, with a surrounding moat system dredged for flood control and grain transport. The Jinling city of the Southern Tang expanded southward across the Qinhuai River, establishing a water network pattern of outer rivers for flood control and inner rivers for navigation. In the early Ming dynasty, Nanjing expanded significantly to the east, west, and north, systematically dredging and managing the Yanque Lake and Jinchuan River systems newly incorporated into the city, forming an integrated water conservancy system unifying city and river with multiple functions. The East and West Water Passes that regulate the Qinhuai River's entry to and exit from the old city were integrated with the Ming city wall; the lock chambers used multi-arch hollow brick-and-stone structures with three tiers of defense, scientifically resolving the contradictions among flood control, navigation, and defense. Coordinated with the river and lake systems, the northern part of the city drained through open channels and hundreds of ponds into the Jinchuan River, while the densely populated residential areas in the southern part of the city were built with dense brick-covered underground drainage systems that converged through the East and West Official Ditches into the inner Qinhuai River, with regular dredging by the government, donations of labor and money by merchants and residents, and steles erected prohibiting damage to ensure the smooth operation of the drainage system.
In the contemporary era, as the city scale gradually expanded, Nanjing in 1975 cut the Qinhuai New River from Heding Bridge westward for flood diversion, and in 2025 implemented the third ridge-cutting flood diversion project of the Qinhuai River — the East Qinhuai River — forming together with the Yangtze River a new-era "ring city water system" of nearly 100 kilometers. The Ming city wall is an important barrier against floods; cultural heritage protection workers have restored the ingenious ancient drainage systems on the wall, installed 28 monitoring points along the route for real-time monitoring and early warning of water levels, wall stress, and soil moisture content, and built a digital twin model of the city wall's flood control and drainage based on the Nanjing Smart Water Affairs Platform, simulating extreme rainfall, high Yangtze River water levels, and other scenarios to formulate emergency response plans in advance.
For the problem of waterlogging in historic districts that most ancient cities face, Nanjing has also conducted explorations. The Xiaoxihu historic district renewal project adopted traditional techniques to lay permeable pavement; restored the cultural landscape of "Kuaiyuan Spring Water," re-excavated ponds to increase water storage capacity and serve as backup municipal and firefighting water sources; and built China's first micro utility tunnel in a historic district, solving the problem of narrow historic streets and alleys where conventional techniques could not be used to lay separate rainwater and sewage pipes or various networks for firefighting, electricity, and telecommunications. In 2022, it received the UNESCO Award of Excellence for Cultural Heritage Conservation.
We should systematically study and draw on the wisdom of flood control and drainage in ancient urban and rural construction, and apply it creatively and innovatively in urban development to ensure the long-term safety and stability of residents' lives.
(The author is a professor at the School of Architecture, Southeast University)

Return to Top

Liancun Castle Stands Guard Through the Years (Cultural Relics at My Doorstep)

By: 缪贞谊

Over the weekend, I returned to my hometown Fu'an in eastern Fujian, and also made an appointment with good friends to visit Liancun Village. The village's most moving sight remains the Liancun Castle, which, though weathered by more than 400 years of wind and rain, stands 岿然不动 (kuī rán bù dòng - "towering and unmoving," standing firm and unshaken), steadily guarding a homeland.

According to the Fu'an County Gazetteer, because of the outbreak of Japanese pirate raids along the coast, Liancun, situated at a land-and-water thoroughfare, was frequently harassed. The villagers therefore, in the thirty-ninth year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty (1560), worked 夜以继日 (yè yǐ jì rì - "night by day," day and night without rest), spontaneously gathering along the shore to pick up stream stones and cobblestones to build the outer wall, and using clay to tamp the interior, ultimately constructing this sturdy castle with a base width of about 4 meters, a height of about 3 meters, and a circumference of about 1,200 meters. The top of the castle has a continuous patrol walkway; standing on it, one can take in all the activity of the village at a glance, providing convenience for watchkeeping and lookout. At the same time, the city wall is spaced with six arched gates — the Integrity Gate, Loyalty Gate, Filial Piety Gate, Propriety Gate, Righteousness Gate, and Trustworthiness Gate — which can both channel villagers' daily entry and exit and facilitate evacuation to safety, and can also flexibly allocate manpower and material resources according to the situation at each gate, optimizing the offense and defense of the entire castle.

During the Ming dynasty, the castle successfully repelled repeated incursions by Japanese pirates; during the Revolutionary War period, the castle sheltered the work of the underground Party and rendered further meritorious service to the red cause. In 2013, Liancun Castle became a cultural relic protection unit of Fujian Province.

Worth mentioning is that Liancun, within the castle, is a famous Chinese historical and cultural village. It originated in the Liang dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, and its uniquely distinctive village name was conferred by imperial decree in the High Tang. These facts can be found in the Chunxi Sanshan Zhi: in 502 AD, Xue He, Grand Master of Splendid Happiness of the Liang dynasty of the Southern Dynasties, led his clan to migrate south from Jiangsu to Fujian, settling here to multiply and thrive; in 706 AD, his sixth-generation descendant Xue Lingzhi went to Chang'an to sit the imperial examination, becoming the first person from Fujian to pass the metropolitan examination and earn the title of Presented Scholar, and was appointed to the post of Left Supplementary Corrector and concurrently Tutor to the Crown Prince. Later, Xue Lingzhi, dissatisfied with the ascendancy of treacherous ministers and being sidelined, soon resigned from office and returned home, farming in seclusion. After Emperor Suzong of Tang, Li Heng, ascended the throne, he recalled his deceased teacher, who had been upright and forthright, and by imperial decree named his hometown "Liancun" (Integrity Village) and its waters "Lianxi" (Integrity Stream).

Recalling the summers of my youth, I always loved to come with friends to play around the castle area — sometimes hiding among the battlements and grass to play hide-and-seek, sometimes climbing to the top of the wall to catch cicadas, sometimes jumping into Lianxi to fish and splash in the water. When tired and sleepy, we would go to the camphor grove beside the castle to doze off. Now that I am older, I enjoy leafing through local gazetteers and clan genealogies, and my understanding of Liancun has gradually deepened. I have even presumed to act as a "free tour guide," introducing both the ancient sites within the city — such as the Houhu Palace, the Phoenix Pool, and the Bright Moon Well — and explaining new sights outside the city, such as the Integrity Culture Park. Naturally, rambling on about the castle's past and present is indispensable.

In recent years, the local government has carried out orderly reinforcement and restoration work on the castle, leveling the cobblestone mooring banks outside the wall, widening the ancient wharf, and conducting regular dredging and cleaning of Lianxi. The ancient castle has been infused with new life. Seen from an aerial drone shot, Liancun Castle is elliptical in shape, embracing the entire village in a closed loop; while outside the city, Lianxi resembles a green ribbon, winding around the ancient castle. Thus, one castle and one stream guard the safety of generations of descendants, preserve the ancient site's original appearance, and continue the lineage of the culture of integrity.

Return to Top

Watching Over the Covered Bridge, Watching Over Home (What's New)

By: 张 喆

In China's mountainous regions, more than 2,000 covered bridges remain. They span mountain streams and river valleys, serving as transportation facilities built by rural craftsmen who felled timber and piled stones through collective effort, and also as public spaces carrying rural life such as gatherings, deliberations, sacrificial rites, and prayer. They have likewise become bonds through which people express nostalgia for home and maintain emotional connections.

In 2023, the Publicity Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and the National Cultural Heritage Administration jointly launched a three-year action for covered bridge protection. Recently, after more than four months of preparation, the "Watching and Guarding — Exhibition of Achievements of the Three-Year Action for Covered Bridge Protection" opened at the China National Museum of Intangible Cultural Heritage (中国非物质文化遗产馆). The exhibition is divided into three chapters — "Covered Bridges in Wind and Rain," "Three-Year Action," and "Watching and Guarding Nostalgia" — displaying a large number of precious images and physical objects. It not only interprets the contemporary value of covered bridges but also uses covered bridges as a lens to reflect the path of systematic protection of heritage buildings.

A covered bridge, as its name suggests, is a bridge with a covered gallery structure erected upon it. However, as a small category within heritage architecture, covered bridges hidden deep in the mountains are relatively little known to the public. Where did covered bridges come from, and why were they built? We hope that when audiences enter the exhibition area, they can find the answers at first glance. Therefore, the first chapter opens with the origin of the term "covered bridge," using architect Mr. Liu Dunzhen's (刘敦桢) essay "Covered Bridges of China" as an introduction, tracing their historical origins and typological characteristics through A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains and Along the River During the Qingming Festival; relying on rubbings of bridge steles, inscriptions, bridge covenants, and physical tools, it presents the complete process of a covered bridge from preparatory planning and hiring craftsmen to site selection and groundbreaking, completion celebration, and maintenance and upkeep. The exhibition popularizes the structure and forms of covered bridges to the public, and also hopes to reveal the rural construction wisdom, the governance tradition of joint construction and shared protection, and the spiritual connotation of harmonious coexistence hidden behind covered bridges.

Can the three-year action produce systematic conservation practice results? From the 1,355 bridges screened at the start of the action to the final precise positioning of 2,193 covered bridges, covered bridge resources have expanded to 15 provinces; 767 have completed basic surveying and mapping, 247 have completed fine surveying and mapping, 198 have achieved panoramic image preservation, and 177 covered bridge protection and restoration projects have been implemented. Through data comparisons and on-site imagery, the exhibition uses micro-narratives to present the work records of special surveys, documentation and archival filing, protection and restoration, emergency rescue and repair, and intangible cultural heritage transmission, allowing audiences to see the craftsmanship and perseverance of the guardians in the details, and to see the guardian tableau of joint investment from all sectors of society and the vigorous participation of local residents.

In addition, we also hope that the exhibition route can link up the complete chain of systematic protection — from survey, documentation, mapping, investigation, research, restoration, disaster prevention, management, display, utilization, and publicity — so that the public can truly feel that today's heritage protection lies not only in the continued existence of the covered bridge itself, but also in the living transmission of the associated construction techniques, folk activities, and rural life scenes, and moreover in the continuation and rebirth of the local memories and cultural ecology it carries within the contemporary context.

We have centrally displayed the covered bridge models, covered bridge survey reports, and other achievements provided by various provinces, combined with a national map of covered bridge resource distribution. Timber-arch covered bridges, extended-arm beam covered bridges, timber flat-beam covered bridges... models of various forms allow audiences to intuitively perceive the diverse characteristics of covered bridges in different regions. In particular, the discovery of covered bridge distribution in Shanxi and Gansu provinces has broken the public's old perception that "covered bridges exist only in the south," demonstrating the richness of types and breadth of distribution of China's covered bridges.

At critical moments of disaster rescue, the mutual watchfulness and assistance (守望相助) of universal participation is deeply moving. The exhibition displays disaster relief imagery from Zhejiang's Wenxing Bridge (文兴桥), Fujian's Wan'an Bridge (万安桥), and Hunan's Hengban Bridge (横板桥) — from the touching scenes of villagers spontaneously salvaging and transporting scattered components, to experts and craftsmen identifying and repositioning scattered components according to historical drawings, to intangible cultural heritage inheritors carrying out mortise-and-tenon processing and column-and-beam erection following traditional construction techniques... People work together to restore the original appearance of the covered bridges to the greatest extent possible.

In the process of repairing old bridges and building new ones, veteran craftsmen take on apprentices and teach their skills, giving young craftsmen hands-on practical opportunities; the ranks of inheritors have grown significantly, the traditional construction techniques of covered bridges have successors, and cultural relic protection and intangible cultural heritage protection have advanced in coordination. The second chapter of the exhibition concludes with the important achievement of "Traditional Construction Techniques of Chinese Timber-Arch Bridges" successfully transitioning from the UNESCO "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding" to the "Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity," emphasizing the cultural vitality unleashed by systematic conservation practice.

A covered bridge has been moved into the exhibition hall, simulating a real-life scene of ancient trees, the bridge bank, a mountain stream, and stepping-stone bridge (碇步桥), guiding audiences to rest and chat under the trees, walk onto the covered bridge, and immersively experience today's covered bridge, extending their gaze from the single covered bridge to the broader landscape of mountains and waters and the countryside. The lucid waters and lush mountains (绿水青山) allow audiences to intuitively perceive the improvement of the rural environment around covered bridges; home beside the bridge enables visitors to appreciate the close connection between covered bridges and today's rural communities; suitable for livelihood and suitable for tourism demonstrates the vigorous vitality brought by the integration of culture and tourism. Here, the exhibition presents both the changes between covered bridges and their surrounding environment, contemporary life, and rural development brought by the three-year action for covered bridge protection, and further outlines a beautiful vision of future coexistence and shared prosperity between covered bridges and villages.

The three-year action has not only enabled the effective protection and utilization of 2,193 covered bridges, but has also made "watching and guarding" a deeply rooted consciousness. Watching and guarding nostalgia is not a longing that remains in the past, but a creation oriented toward the future. When covered bridges are revitalized one after another, when villages prosper because of bridges one after another, when groups gather because of bridges one after another, we truly understand the weight of the two words "watching and guarding."

Return to Top

For the treasures embedded in the highlands

By: 柴焕波

From 2016 to 2023, with the participation of nine institutions including the Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (湖南省文物考古研究院) and the Institute of Cultural Relics Protection of the Tibet Autonomous Region (西藏自治区文物保护研究所), the "Digitalization of Tibetan Monastery Murals" project that I led was carried out, completing more than 280 monasteries in total.

These ancient murals scattered across Tibet are like treasures inlaid in the plateau's mountains and rivers. Since the 1980s, cultural relics workers have conducted cultural relics surveys and special investigations, and hundreds of ancient murals have been discovered, but due to the conditions of the time, records of the murals were extremely limited. In the past dozen or so years, institutions such as the Palace Museum took the lead in digitalizing the murals of the Jokhang Temple, the Potala Palace, and other monasteries, but systematic digitalization of monastery murals had not yet begun. It was against this backdrop that our project was launched.

Over more than eight years, my team and I traveled through the deep mountains and secluded valleys of Tibet, from the farming areas of the Ü-Tsang region, the deep mountains and dense forests of the southeast, the pastoral areas of the northwest, to the sparsely populated border regions, recording the remnants of civilization in countless remote village temples. The photographic lights illuminated murals that had slept for years, and their ancient visages unfolded before our eyes—they are the terminal ends of many historical threads.

In the summer of 2017, we surveyed Kangsong Sangkangling (康松桑康林) in Zhanang County (扎囊县). This monastery was founded in the late 8th century and was built in the style of the Wuzi (Uze) Great Hall of Samye Monastery. At the time, the monastery was closed to visitors, and day after day I immersed myself in the tranquil hall, my thoughts flowing between the murals and the statues—at once a scholar pursuing academic ideals, seeking points of knowledge, religious logic, and states of enlightenment in the murals, and like a devout practitioner, experiencing inner joy and serenity.

That same summer, we were searching for traces of murals in the mountains south of Ridang Township (日当镇) in Longzi County (隆子县). Suddenly, an ancient stupa caught our eye—its natural, aged appearance was like the old grandmother in my memory. Tears welled up in my eyes unbidden. No need to ask—this was it! Attached to the stupa body was an old shrine hall, with a circumambulation corridor forming the outermost ring. This kind of stupa-temple structure was very popular in northwestern India and Central Asia. In Tibet, stupas and temples are generally separate. This nameless little temple is very likely a building type that had already been lost in the early period of the later dissemination of Tibetan Buddhism. That it has survived the erosion of time and been preserved to this day is truly a miracle! The little temple preserves a considerable amount of early murals in the Nepalese painting style, dating to around the 14th century. This site belongs to the Guo group of Ridang Village and had never been discovered in any previous cultural relics survey, so I named it "Guolakang" (果拉康).

That day, when we had lunch in Ridang Township, it was already long past lunchtime. During the meal, I thanked the local cultural relics worker Qusang for accompanying us throughout—without him, we would not have made such great gains in Longzi County. Qusang said: "Your focus and selflessness have given us hope and stirred our enthusiasm for work. We hope you will come again." As the car left Ridang Township and began to climb over the mountains, my backpack held incense given by the monks and a khata given by Qusang, and my heart was warm. I thought, in this bitter cold land of the plateau, among the sacred mountains and holy lakes, I have already received so many beautiful things—like a spring silkworm spinning silk, in the end I will surely weave the colorful garment of my life.

Early Tibetan murals are as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns (凤毛麟角 - fèng máo lín jiǎo, "phoenix feathers, qilin horns," extremely rare). Some remote little temples, because they have had fewer opportunities for human renovation, have instead preserved more genuine traces of the early period. The protection of these early murals faces two major problems. The first is natural erosion. Because monastery buildings have been eroded by storms, earthquakes, melting snow, hail, and rain, their internal components have become tilted, decayed, and sunken; walls have become friable on the inside and outside, cracked, and leaking; and the binding materials between the mural layer and the ground plaster have aged and shrunk, causing the murals to develop pathologies such as flaking, paint loss, cracking, detachment, and blistering. After some monasteries collapsed, murals exposed to the open air have disappeared even more rapidly. The second is man-made damage. Many monastery murals have been repainted during modern restoration work. Apart from a few nationally protected cultural heritage units, cultural relics departments generally cannot stop this, and large numbers of ancient murals have thus disappeared. The most effective method of protection is to use digital technology to preserve the image information permanently. These materials not only open new fields for research on Tibetan Buddhist archaeology, mural iconography, and the history of Tibetan art, but also lay the foundation for formulating specific mural protection plans.

Next, we plan to establish a Tibetan mural information center and gradually realize the sharing of part of the mural data. We hope these efforts will have a positive impact on the preservation and dissemination of Tibetan culture.

Return to Top

Zhou Feiya

I notice that the document to be translated is missing from your message. The only content provided is:

本版邮箱 ysbjs@peopledaily.cn

This appears to be just the section email address for People's Daily ("This section's email: ysbjs@peopledaily.cn"), not a document requiring translation.

Please provide the full Chinese text you would like me to translate, and I will render it into English according to the specified guidelines.

Return to Top

Feelings for Zichang (My City and I)

By: 乔林生

One

Zichang in Shaanxi is a city that must be described through feeling.

In 2019, Zichang was upgraded from a county to a city. Although the builders of my hometown work day and night to add bricks and tiles to it, when compared with those county-level cities that truly stand out from the crowd, I have always felt that it still seems to lack the temperament and bearing it ought to have. That said, this does not stop me from walking back into it and getting to know it anew.

First, look at Wayaobao Subdistrict, where the municipal party committee and municipal government are located: the old-town infrastructure renovation project launched two years ago is nearing completion. Walking along the completely renewed main street, I suddenly noticed that the antique-style shops and stores beside me and the bluestone-paved pedestrian street looked almost exactly like the scenes that so often appear in my dreams. Restoring the old as old — the oldness feels familiar, the oldness feels distinctive, the oldness stirs the heart. This is the continuation and beautification of my childhood impressions.

I need not say how well the people of Zichang eat now, how well they dress, how convenient their transportation is, or how happy their lives are. But there are two delicacies that I thoroughly enjoyed this visit that I must mention. One is buckwheat pancakes, and the other is mung bean jelly noodles. The pancakes are as thin as cicada wings, as white as solidified fat, wrapped around hot smoked tofu, garlic-mashed pork head, or stir-fried three-shredded vegetables, dipped in spicy and fragrant condiments — the more delicious they could be, the more delicious they are. As for the jelly noodles, they are crystal-clear as jade, translucent and glossy, "trembling with tendon" like pork skin aspic; they slide into the mouth smooth and chewy. In the height of summer, a bowl of these is simply wonderful.

The pancake shop newly opened by Boss Feng was crowded with diners coming and going. I happened to exchange glances with a stranger from out of town, and we struck up a conversation in Shaanxi-accented Mandarin; before long we had become friends who could open their hearts to each other. Such is life. Some people you may have known for decades, yet when you meet you only nod. And some people, though you meet them by chance like duckweed drifting together, can sit with you as if they had known you for several lifetimes.

But toward many of Zichang's changes and differences, I still feel a sense of estrangement, a sense of not recognizing it anymore. For example, the urban area now has a secondhand goods market like Beijing's Panjiayuan; the vendors of all kinds of specialty foods, fruits, vegetables, and melons have moved into a commercial building comparable to a large supermarket; the "aerial flying threads" that once densely crisscrossed overhead like spiderwebs are nowhere to be seen; the newly developed Hongshimaomao Reservoir water source has put an end to the days of water shortages; and the vast coal seas hidden deep in the strata are now being mined intelligently one after another. Also, many young people have fallen in love with aerial photography — filming the green mountains and clear waters of their hometown, filming the dazzling light shows atop the Anding Pagoda, filming the red lilies blooming on Gaobai Mountain...

Two

When new things emerge in endless succession, people's nostalgic feelings also grow by multiples.

The most famous old courtyard in Zichang is undoubtedly the site of the Wayaobao Meeting. Who could forget those fiery years when the whole nation united in shared indignation to face the national crisis together? At a time of national peril and amid the rush of war, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party moved its seat here on November 7, 1935, and the following month squeezed out a full nine days to hold a long meeting in a cave dwelling. This was the Wayaobao Meeting, which determined the direction of the Chinese revolution, established the policy of forming a broad anti-Japanese national united front, and began the transition from the Agrarian Revolutionary War to the whole-nation War of Resistance Against Japan. The smoke of history's wars has long since dispersed over the Loess Plateau, and the wounds left by the hard years have slowly healed. Visitors from all corners of the country come here to trace the footsteps of the revolutionary forebears. Those shining footsteps are scattered across the ridges and hollows, the gullies and slopes of northern Shaanxi, becoming markers that guide generation after generation forward.

The marker with the greatest weight in my heart in Zichang is the Zichang Mausoleum, which sits with its back against Zouma Ridge. Buried here are the remains of the martyr Xie Zichang, one of the principal founders of the Northwest Red Army and the Northwest Revolutionary Base Area, and commander-in-chief of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Northern Shaanxi Guerrilla Forces. Today it has become an爱国主义 education base where the cypresses and pines stay evergreen and the atmosphere is solemn and dignified, and those who come to pay their respects and mourn arrive in an endless stream.

When I was a little over ten years old, my friends and I often came to the Zichang Mausoleum to poke at bird nests, pick locust flowers, and gather firewood. We only knew that the tomb's occupant was a great man, and had no idea of the historical fact that Chairman Mao had written inscriptions for him three times and composed the epitaph on his tombstone. Decades later, as I now study each large character carved on the stele and read aloud each line of the concise yet weighty epitaph, I cannot help but feel my eyes moisten with tears. In August 1934, while commanding a fierce battle at Hekou Town in Qingjian, Xie Zichang was hit by a bullet in the chest; because of a shortage of medicine and doctors, his wound became infected and worsened, and he died a few months later at the age of 38. In May 1942, to commemorate this national hero, the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region Government approved the renaming of the former Anding County to Zichang County.

Standing beneath the huge billboard reading "When you come to Zichang, happiness is long-lasting," I began to feel dazed, as if history and the present were crowded into the same space. It seemed I had traveled back eighty or ninety years, seeing Chairman Mao leading the Party's ranks, beneath a crimson sky, climbing over every mountain and wading through every river to liberate every inch of land. I kept feeling that the nearly 3,000 Zichang martyrs who died during the war years would rise up from the flower beds on both banks of the moat river, brush the dust from their clothes, pierce through the thick fog, pierce through the tunnel of time, and make their way home one after another. Could they still find the road home? A friend accompanying me answered with great firmness: "They can! Because they live forever!"

Along the leisure promenade by the Xiuyan River, we walked slowly forward. At every flower bed we passed, we could not help but stop and gaze for a moment.

Three

In Beijing I once came across a video: after rain cleared, Wayaobao was shrouded in clouds and mist, like a mirage. My wife guessed it was made with artificial intelligence. Only when I saw it with my own eyes this time — after a heavy rain, the sea of clouds surging and rolling, the mountains appearing and disappearing among them — did I realize that everything was real. The improvement of the ecological environment has turned the bleak Loess Plateau into a replica of the green Jiangnan water country.

Stepping cheerfully out of the Wayaobao Meeting site, one sees lush growing crop fields, villages near and far, and occasionally runs into bustling townships and market towns.

Many people do not know that Zichang also possesses a national-treasure-level cultural relic — the Zhongshan Grottoes, hidden at the southern foot of Zhongshan Mountain in Anding Town, built against the cliff face. This artistic gem, after a thousand years of wind and rain, retains its elegance and its power to astonish. More than ten thousand stone-carved statues densely cover eight pillars reaching to the ceiling and the four walls, none of them identical, combining the legacy of the Tang dynasty with the realistic spirit of the Song dynasty. Especially precious is that the grotto preserves the earliest stone-carved statue group of "Xuanzang's Journey to the West for Buddhist Scriptures" with a definite date. In the scene, Xuanzang holds his hands together in prayer, his guide leads the horse alongside, and the white horse carries the scriptures — a vivid recreation of the historical fact of cultural exchange between China and the West along the Silk Road more than 1,300 years ago.

Generation after generation comes and goes. Only the Zhongshan Grottoes stand there, never falling, never decaying, quietly watching the sun rise and set, watching the seas change into mulberry fields, watching the river wash away time again and again.

When I was young, I only wanted to struggle to get out and away. But at this moment I discovered that what truly makes one feel so at ease that one does not want to leave is a place like Zichang — where at night you can see the bright stars in the sky, and in winter you can bask in the warm sunlight. And the wind on the hillside will tell you many stories.

Return to Top

"Easiest to Overlook" and "Most Important to Prioritize" (Jintai Reflections)

By: 于文岗

Recall that in past office hygiene inspections, people would habitually reach up and run a finger along the top edge of the door to check for dust; when inspecting a construction site, they would often go to a corner of the site to see whether the toilet was clean; when evaluating the management of an enterprise, they would first look at its "matter of the utmost importance that is treated as trivial" — the sanitary condition and quality of food in the staff canteen — for this is the detail that most needs to be managed well.

People often pay attention to the glossy facade, while overlooking what is hidden and minute. Little do they realize that the minute is precisely what is most easily overlooked, and precisely where the true picture is most easily concealed. The three examples above show inspectors attempting, through the minute details that are "most easily overlooked," to see the true face of things. From this it can be seen that subjecting the minute details that are "most easily overlooked" to an examination that is "of the utmost importance," so as thereby to observe the original appearance, probe the truth, and ascertain the actual situation, is both common sense in daily life and a wisdom and skill of observation that perceives the whole from a single detail — and moreover a yardstick and method for understanding people and judging affairs.

The logic of "most easily overlooked" and "of the utmost importance" is not something that exists only in modern times; it is a universal principle running through ancient and present, and an effective path to insight into things. The allusion recorded in the "Yu Lao" chapter of Han Feizi — "Jizi saw ivory chopsticks and was terrified" — is the best proof. When King Zhou of Shang made a pair of ivory chopsticks, Jizi perceived the hidden danger and was afraid: ivory chopsticks would certainly not be paired with coarse earthenware vessels, but would ultimately be matched with cups and goblets of rhinoceros horn and jade; jade cups and ivory chopsticks would not hold coarse food, but would pursue delicacies such as elephant fetus and leopard fetus from mountains and seas; one who dines on such delicacies would certainly not wear coarse cloth garments or dwell in low thatched huts, but would surely wear brocade and live in grand houses. Because he feared the evil consequences, he was afraid upon seeing the ivory chopsticks. A change in utensils as small as a pair of chopsticks — a tiny detail extremely easy for people to ignore — concealed the beginning of extravagance and corruption, and became a clear mirror by which one leaf heralds autumn and one spot reveals the leopard, and ultimately confirmed the outcome of the Shang dynasty's downfall.

Not coincidentally, the story of "new shoes treading in mud" recorded in Zhang Han's Songchuang Mengyu of the Ming dynasty has a similar subtlety. After rain, a sedan-chair bearer, having just put on new shoes, stepped with care at every pace, choosing his ground, fearing only to be stained by mud and water; yet once he had inadvertently stepped into a mud pit, he no longer had any scruples. "The way of conducting oneself in the world is just like this. If one makes a single misstep, there will be nothing one will not do." A shoe stained with a spot of mud is in itself the most easily overlooked of trivial daily matters, but under certain circumstances and under the effect of certain mindsets, it causes a person to slide rapidly from "losing one's grip on small matters" to "letting oneself go." Ouyang Xiu's words in the "Preface to the Biography of the Ling Officials" in the New History of the Five Dynasties — "misfortunes often accumulate from the minute and slight" — are also this same principle. All collapse and ruin originates in the minute places that are looked down upon. If one wishes to have a good beginning and a good end, one must be mindful of that small "first spot of mud."

Extending this method of observation and examination to the myriad phenomena of society reveals its value even more. In the pursuit of learning, people mostly value the examination scores and rankings when results are posted, while neglecting the minute persistence of accumulating notes and reviewing mistakes; little do they realize that there is never a shortcut to the advancement of knowledge, and the easily overlooked accumulation of bits and pieces is precisely the footprint of progress. In conducting oneself in the world, people mostly care about decorous speech on formal occasions and an imposing external appearance, while slighting the proper measure in dealing with others and the conduct of self-discipline when alone; yet true cultivation is always hidden in details that no one supervises. At the level of governance, the tendency to emphasize form and appearance has repeatedly failed to be eliminated despite prohibitions; those hidden small matters concerning people's livelihood and future generations, the minute loopholes in governance, and the weak details at the grassroots level may seem trivial, yet they concern the people's hearts and concern the long term — they are precisely the fields where social governance should most deeply cultivate. In fact, many sample observations in sociology and biology also employ this way of thinking.

The dialectical thinking of "most easily overlooked" and "of the utmost importance" has positive significance for both the individual and society. When the pursuit of learning drifts toward superficiality, when doing things tends toward perfunctoriness, and when governance floats on the surface, if this continues for long, many hidden dangers will quietly accumulate amid neglect. Only by cultivating a method of observation that pays attention to minute places and examines hidden details can one achieve the ability to perceive trends from the minute, discern misfortune from the subtle, and guard oneself with caution.

Return to Top

Sesame Bun

By: 肖克寒

My hometown is tucked away in a mountain corner of central Hunan. This year, the ancestral house was being rebuilt, and my mother put me in charge of overseeing the work. As a result, I got to know quite a few local bosses and master craftsmen.

"Boss Liu" who sells building materials, "Brother Xiao" who holds a masonry certificate, "Soldier Boy" with his glasses... These bosses and master craftsmen all have eyes that reveal warmth, simplicity, and straightforwardness—though not without a touch of shrewdness.

After the main structure of the ancestral house was completed, the foundation for the lean-to still needed leveling and concrete pouring. The workload wasn't too large, and the technical difficulty wasn't high, so there was no need to bring in machinery. The neighbors suggested hiring a few capable laborers—someone trustworthy and cost-effective. But I worried that such capable laborers wouldn't be easy to gather on short notice. To my surprise, the neighbors immediately recommended: for this kind of work, the best choice is Contractor Tang from Tongmuchong! Tongmuchong is nearly twenty li from my hometown, and I'd never met Tang, but I knew the neighbors had dealings with him and knew him inside and out.

I got Tang's phone number and called him right away. Over the phone, I could hear the noisy bustle of a busy construction site. It took a while before I could make out a somewhat hoarse reply: "No time—at least two or three days before I'm free..." Just as I was about to give up, a neighbor laughed and said, "Everyone has to queue up to get him. But he's the best choice—reliable and worth the money." So two days later, I called Tang again. He hesitated for a moment, then said the day after tomorrow should work, weather permitting.

The day arrived quickly, but at dawn the weather was uncertain—sunny one moment, overcast the next. I was hesitating when I saw a four-wheeled cart clattering up from under the big beech tree at the village entrance, stopping precisely at the foundation of our lean-to. Several sturdy men climbed down from the cart carrying hoes, shovels, mortar buckets, and other tools. It turned out to be a whole squad!

The first to get off was a burly man with a square face—this must be "Contractor Tang." I hurried over and offered him a cigarette. He took it, lit it, but stood still, only turning his head repeatedly to look behind him. Only then did I see the last man step down from the cart—short in stature, with gray, disheveled hair and a thin, gaunt face. What was especially striking was how severely hunched his back was. I immediately guessed that this man was probably related to the square-faced man and had come along on his connections to earn some wages.

I didn't feel I could raise any objection, so I began explaining to the square-faced man what needed to be done. To my surprise, the square-faced man said in a muffled voice, "Go talk to our contractor!" I was momentarily bewildered. The square-faced man pointed to the hunchbacked man, who was already inspecting a few bags of cement. I was taken aback: he—was "Contractor Tang"?

After exchanging a few words with Tang, he didn't say much and quickly quoted a price—which turned out to be half a workday less than I had estimated. What happened next surprised me again. Tang, while nimbly moving cement bags, deftly deployed his men amid the puffing dust: who would level the ground, who would cut the rebar, who would carry water, who would mix the concrete... The square-faced man was put in charge of checking the foundation and raking. The others sprang into action as soon as they received their assignments.

One younger worker was still smoking, and Tang immediately said to him sternly, "Are you trying to get home in the dark?" The young man froze for a moment, then immediately stubbed out his cigarette and grabbed his shovel.

On the building site, an orderly scene of work unfolded. My gaze fell on Tang's deeply furrowed brow, his small glinting eyes, his worn knee-high rubber boots—and in my heart, the question marks still lingered. But by the end of the day, I had come to admire this unremarkable-looking man, and I finally understood why the neighbors all recommended him...

Later, I learned more about Tang's background: he was in his fifties, had married a woman with health problems, and had a son. Relying on his keen instincts, he had seized on the market niche of "not enough satisfactory laborers" on rural construction sites, and had worked for years as a contractor hiring out day laborers, earning the nickname "Sesame Bun." But despite being a "Sesame Bun," he never did shoddy work—the local dialect phrase for working is "doing labor" (做工夫), and he never cut corners. When he took on a contract, he would bring along folks from his hometown, and they would all gather at the first call. No matter how much the daily wage was, he never took a cut for himself. This "Sesame Bun" often had a favorite saying: doing labor is being a person.

Return to Top

Photo Report

Chinese painting "Green Lake," by Liu Xun (刘迅), in the collection of the National Art Museum of China (中国美术馆).

Return to Top

Qingshan Qingbuliang (A Medley of Flavors)

By: 刘诗良

Clear, supplement, cool — in summer, seeing any one of these characters brings a sense of coolness to the heart. When the three characters qing bu liang are put together, one feels even more strongly a breath of cool refreshment rushing toward the face. A bowl of Qing Bu Liang in summer is the heart's delight of the people of Shangrao, Jiangxi, and Yanshan Qing Bu Liang, with its shops clustering into a market and diners gathering in crowds, has long been a signature scene of Shangrao summers.

The ancients had their own wisdom for beating the heat. According to legend, in 219 BC, Qin Shi Huang sent Tu Sui and Zhao Tuo to lead an army of 500,000 south on a campaign against the Lingnan region, but the northern soldiers, unaccustomed to the damp heat of the south, fell ill one after another. The army physicians prepared a medicinal congee with lotus seeds, lily bulbs, Radix Glehniae, foxnut seeds, Polygonatum odoratum, Chinese yam, and Job's tears, and after eating it the soldiers recovered their spirits. Zhao Tuo thereupon exclaimed with admiration: "Eating this clears heat from the body and supplements its vital energy — this thing may well be called Qing Bu Liang."

Over the millennia, Qing Bu Liang has spread through many regions. Yanshan Qing Bu Liang upholds the principle of "seven flavors united as one," using white fungus and mung beans as the main ingredients, supplemented by lotus seeds, peanuts, red dates, raisins, and longan, pursuing the natural taste of the ingredients and carrying a naturally sweet, cool, and refreshing character.

Yanshan Qing Bu Liang carries the summer memories of several generations. In the era before air conditioning, the banks of the Xin River in the evening were a natural refuge from the heat; people would bring a few plates of cold dishes and a bowl of Qing Bu Liang, and sit by the river to cool off and while away the summer. Over the years, generation after generation of Yanshan people have passed down the craft of making Qing Bu Liang. The white fungus is soaked until rehydrated and then cut into small pieces, the longan is shelled, and the mung beans, lotus seeds, peanuts, red dates, and raisins are all washed and set aside. Each ingredient is cooked separately according to its kind. The white fungus is boiled until thick and gelatinous — this is the "soul of the base broth" of Qing Bu Liang. The mung beans are cooked until they bloom and release their sandiness, but should not be boiled too soft; it is best to retain a slight graininess. While hot, rock sugar or white sugar is added to the white fungus and mung bean soup, and then the other small ingredients are ladled in. Served this way, a bowl of crystal-clear Qing Bu Liang arrives at the table — sweet, chewy, and cool, spoonful after spoonful carried to the mouth, filled with refreshment.

The Yanshan way with Qing Bu Liang does not stop there; it is often accompanied by cold dishes or hot stir-fries. Cold dishes include boiled edamame, dressed lotus root slices, and dressed seaweed shreds; hot stir-fries include stir-fried river snails and spicy crayfish. Today, Yanshan Qing Bu Liang has its own night market, in the Wuyi Pavilion Square along the Xin River, where more than a hundred stalls stretch in an unbroken line. Whenever night falls, people stream in from all directions (四面八方 - sì miàn bā fāng - "four faces, eight directions," from every side and quarter), drawn by the desire to taste this sweet, cool, joyful flavor of summer.

Return to Top

Heat wave

By: 薄学斌

The Great Plain in the Morning

Every white poplar is fortunate
Sunlight first caresses their crowns
Then the cornfields, the river grows loud
Then, it reaches me
Amid endless verdure, a sudden surging heat wave
Again and again encourages me and every leaf
To find the shadows born with us, and ignite them
Suddenly I feel everything scorching is full of power
All things finally have the courage to break free of themselves
Sunlight abandons the entire sky
And descends upon every grain of sand in the riverbed
Amid the airtight sound of stalks jointing
I pass through the great plain, and see my own evaporating self

Return to Top

Tea, alcohol, river water

By: 江 飞

Standing atop the ancient city wall ruins of Linhuan in Huaibei, a gentle breeze brushes the face, and wormwood covers the ground. The winds and clouds of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods have long since dissipated into smoke, leaving only the endless cornfields guarding this land of northern Anhui.

The earth collects everything, and also nurtures everything. In the interaction between the world and the earth, truth comes into being, art is preserved, and the relationship between humanity, land, and life is made manifest.

It is made manifest in a cup of tea. "A thousand cups of wine in foreign lands cannot match one pot of tea in Linhuan." Tea is the soul of Linhuan Town, and also the lifeblood of its people. As an ancient tea town with a cultural heritage of over 3,000 years, Linhuan prospered because of its proximity to the Huan River. The custom of tea drinking began in the Western and Eastern Jin dynasties, and the tea is called "Bangbang Tea" (棒棒茶), as plain and unadorned as the tea drinkers themselves. On the walls of the century-old time-honored "Yixin Teahouse" (怡心茶楼) hang photographs of tea drinkers. The black-and-white images tell the stories of the old teahouse, freezing in time the bustling烟火 of human life, and also freezing the leisurely, contented moments of the tea drinkers' lives. Listen to a tune of "Lahunsheng" opera, drink a pot of Bangbang tea, and one feels better than an immortal. Drinking tea to comprehend the Way, settling disputes over tea at the teahouse — Wang Shihong (王士宏), a national model people's mediator and "China Good Person," created the "One Cup of Tea Mediation Method" (一杯茶调解法). Warming hearts with tea, discussing life over tea, resolving disputes through tea, finding leverage with tea, dismantling face-saving with tea, providing a ladder of retreat with tea, reaching agreement over tea — seven steps, and a cup of tea transforms into a bridge for communication between people.

It is made manifest in a cup of wine. The wine is Suixi Kouzi wine, which I knew of even in my youth. At that time, my father always liked to drink three small cups of baijiu at lunch, sipping slowly, savoring each mouthful, looking utterly content — which made me both puzzled and envious. Thinking back now, what my father drank was mostly cheap bulk liquor; bottled "Suixi Kouzi wine" and "Kouzi Daqu" were considered high-grade. Every year at the Grain Rain solar term, the people of Suixi follow the ancient method, using the Chu-paper jar-sealing technique passed down through generations, sealing clay jars with 27 layers of Chu paper and a secret-formula coating, then storing them for long-term cellaring to maximize the aging and maturation of the liquor. At this very moment, they are undergoing the tempering and fermentation of time. Drinking a cup of the raw base liquor, one feels a rich, mellow, and intense aroma traveling between lips, teeth, throat, and larynx — spicy at first, then returning sweetness.

It is made manifest in a river. The river is the Grand Canal of China. As the first-phase project of the Sui and Tang dynasties' Grand Canal, the Tongji Canal connected the two major water systems of the Yellow River and the Huai River, linking the important cities of the time such as Luoyang and Yangzhou. Huaibei and Suzhou prospered because they "held the throat of the Bian River and stood at the strategic crossroads of north and south," and Liuzi, through which the Tongji Canal passed, in particular became a major town in the Huaihei region during the Tang and Song dynasties. However, as the political center of the Southern Song dynasty shifted southward, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties established their capitals in Beijing, the Tongji Canal was gradually abandoned, and Liuzi declined along with it. It was not until an archaeological excavation in 1999 that the canal ruins, sleeping for a thousand years, saw the light of day again. At the Liuzi Canal Bridge Ruins Museum and the Sui-Tang Grand Canal Museum, Tang dynasty sunken ships, Northern Song bridge piers, ancient river channel cross-sections, and more than ten thousand precious artifacts spanning the Sui, Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties tell of the former splendor and prosperity. The museums also house those black-and-white, hard and silent Han dynasty stone reliefs — white tigers with wings on their bodies, phoenixes joined beak to beak, and feathered immortals playing with tigers — conveying the ancients' magnificent and wondrous aesthetics and imagination.

Tea water, wine water, river water — flowing ceaselessly, they nourish the land of Huaibei and the children of the Huai River, and they also irrigate the fields of our Chinese hearts.

Return to Top

本版责编：程 红

This edition's mailbox: dadi@peopledaily.cn
　　We welcome submissions from our broad readership. Submissions must be original and first-published, and must not be submitted simultaneously to multiple publications.

Return to Top