People's Daily - September 27, 2026

Xi Jinping returns to Beijing

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) On the afternoon of September 26, President Xi Jinping successfully concluded his state visit to the United States and returned to Beijing.

Peng Liyuan, wife of President Xi Jinping; Cai Qi, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee; Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs; and He Lifeng, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, along with other accompanying personnel, returned on the same flight.

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Xi Jinping Sends Congratulatory Letter to High-Level Dialogue on Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative

(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 26) On September 25, the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative was held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to the Dialogue.

Xi Jinping pointed out that development is the eternal theme of human society and the key to realizing the happiness of the people. Five years ago, I proposed the Global Development Initiative at the United Nations General Assembly precisely in order to promote international development cooperation, revitalize the global development cause, and help accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Xi Jinping stressed that over the past five years, thanks to the joint efforts of all parties, the Global Development Initiative has been widely put into practice, and the Initiative's cooperation projects have been taking root and flourishing (落地生根, luo di sheng gen - "land, fall; grow, root") and yielding successful results (开花结果, kai hua jie guo - "bloom, flower; bear, produce fruit") in more than 120 countries, writing a new chapter of jointly promoting development and pursuing cooperation for win-win outcomes.

Xi Jinping pointed out that at present, the major changes unseen in a century are accelerating, and the people of all countries have an even stronger desire to achieve development. As the largest developing country and a member of the Global South, China is willing to work with all parties, uphold the people-centered development philosophy, join hands to advance the Global Development Initiative in depth and in practice, transform the beautiful vision of the Sustainable Development Goals into a tangible and accessible reality, and make new and greater contributions to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

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Opening the Right Path for Major-Country Relations, Writing a New Chapter in China-U.S. Ties

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) From September 23 to 25, 2026, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United States. At the conclusion of the visit, Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs, briefed accompanying reporters on the visit.

Wang Yi said that in September, head-of-state diplomacy saw frequent and successive occurrences (高潮迭起, gaochao dieqi - "high tide, rise repeatedly") and was splendid and varied (精彩纷呈, jingcai fencheng - "wonderful, present in abundance"). After visiting Central Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia, President Xi Jinping traveled across the Pacific to the other shore, embarking on a visit to the United States that drew worldwide attention (举世瞩目, jushi zhumu - "world, eye, look at"). This was President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States in 11 years, realizing mutual visits by the two heads of state within half a year and creating a historic chapter in China-U.S. relations. The visit had a tight schedule and rich content. President Xi Jinping and President Trump had candid and in-depth exchanges of views on strategic and overarching issues concerning China-U.S. relations and the global situation in a friendly atmosphere of mutual respect. The U.S. side extended the highest protocol honors to President Xi Jinping. President Trump and his wife personally went to the airport to welcome him, the military band played the national anthems of both countries, a 21-gun salute was fired on site, and honor guards from all military services stood in neat formation to pay tribute, opening the visit with a grand prelude. The next day, President Trump held a grand welcome ceremony for President Xi Jinping at the White House. The two heads of state delivered important remarks and reviewed the honor guard and the flyover of aircraft above the White House side by side. That evening, President Trump and his wife decorated the East Room of the White House in Chinese red and held a grand state banquet in honor of President Xi Jinping and his wife, with U.S. government and congressional dignitaries and celebrities from all walks of life gathering together in one place (齐聚一堂, qiju yitang - "gather, together, one hall"). These meticulously designed protocol arrangements highlighted the U.S. side's full respect for President Xi Jinping and its high regard for China-U.S. relations.

Domestic and international media focused on this visit, with front-page headlines providing intensive coverage and analysis, generally viewing it as a historic visit of milestone significance. Amid a volatile and intertwined international situation, this visit carried forward the positive effects of the Beijing meeting between the two heads of state, led China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations toward new development, and released a positive signal of China and the United States moving toward each other, living in peace, and achieving mutually beneficial and win-win (互利共赢, huli gongying - "mutual benefit, win-win") outcomes, benefiting both countries and the world.

I. Expanding the New Positioning of China-U.S. Relations

Wang Yi said that head-of-state diplomacy is the anchor of China-U.S. relations. Since President Trump took office again, the two heads of state have met three times, spoken by phone five times, and exchanged correspondence on multiple occasions, maintaining close interactions and forming a mode of engagement characterized by mutual respect and sincerity, which has become the most valuable strategic asset of China-U.S. relations. At every critical juncture in the voyage of the great ship of China-U.S. relations, head-of-state diplomacy has provided navigation and direction.

During President Trump's visit to China in May this year, the two heads of state jointly confirmed the new positioning of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations, making clear the direction of striving toward cooperation as the mainstay, competition with limits, manageable differences, and a peaceful and expectable future. The new positioning both reflects the reality of China-U.S. relations making steady progress amidst stability (稳中有进, wen zhong you jin - "stable, within, have, progress") and embodies the two sides' expectations for continued improvement in China-U.S. relations, representing an important step toward the right way for the two countries to get along. Following the direction charted by the two heads of state, the two sides actively advanced dialogue and cooperation, properly handled differences and frictions, and achieved overall stability in China-U.S. relations.

The important political outcome of this visit was that President Xi Jinping and President Trump further expanded the connotation of the new positioning of China-U.S. relations, made clear the importance of respect, fairness, and reciprocity, and agreed to build a "China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relationship based on respect, fairness, and reciprocity," providing clearer strategic guidance for China and the United States to explore the way for major countries to get along. Respect means respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, respecting the social systems and development paths each has chosen, and respecting each other's core interests and major concerns. Fairness means conducting mutually beneficial cooperation, handling differences through consultation, refraining from zero-sum games of you-lose-I-win, and not pursuing unilateral absolute advantage. Reciprocity means equality of sovereignty between the two countries, with no hierarchy, no hegemonic or bullying behavior, resolving each other's concerns on a reciprocal basis, and developing cooperation in various fields in a balanced manner. President Xi Jinping pointed out that the two major countries, China and the United States, bear the historic responsibility of promoting human development and progress, and should demonstrate the responsibility of major countries, respond to the aspirations of the people and the trend of the times, and explore a new path for major countries to get along correctly. Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can fully coexist without conflict (并行不悖, bingxing bubei - "parallel, not, conflict"), reinforce each other, and benefit the world.

China and the United States have different national conditions, so it is normal to have differences, some of which are quite sharp, and many contradictions are also complex. But properly handling differences and contradictions while seeking common ground while reserving differences (求同存异, qiutong cunyi - "seek same, keep different") is an inherent requirement of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations. The two heads of state agreed to give full play to the coordinating role of political and diplomatic channels. The two militaries should maintain regular dialogue, and various departments including trade, finance, law enforcement, and people-to-people exchanges need to strengthen communication to build trust and clear up doubts (增信释疑, zengxin shiyi - "increase trust, explain doubt"), manage differences, and accumulate mutual trust. President Xi Jinping set forth China's principled position on the Taiwan question, emphasizing that China firmly safeguards national unity and territorial integrity, urging the U.S. side to adhere to the correct position of opposing "Taiwan independence," handle the Taiwan question with prudence, and remove interference for China-U.S. strategic cooperation and the development of bilateral relations.

Wang Yi said that, as President Xi Jinping pointed out, the "Thucydides Trap" can be overcome. China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations are not a slogan but should be actions of moving toward each other. As long as respect, fairness, and reciprocity are truly embodied, China and the United States will surely be able, through dialogue and consultation, to jointly find the right way for two countries with different civilizations, different systems, and different paths to coexist peacefully on this planet for the long term.

II. Opening New Space for China-U.S. Cooperation

Wang Yi said that as the world's two largest economies, China and the United States are objectively intertwined with each other, history teaches that cooperation benefits both while confrontation harms both, and mutual achievement and win-win cooperation are the only correct choice. China-U.S. cooperation bears on the well-being of the two peoples and also affects the world's political and economic landscape.

On the eve of the visit, the economic and trade teams of the two sides held a new round of consultations and reached a new joint arrangement, including establishing and advancing a trade council and an investment council, setting up an agricultural working group, reciprocal tariff reductions of "$30 billion," and extending the outcomes of the Kuala Lumpur economic and trade consultations, stabilizing bilateral economic and trade relations and market confidence, which is good news for the industries, the people, and even the global economy of both countries. China-U.S. economic and trade relations have gone through twists and turns, and today's stability has not come easily. Some forces on the U.S. side overstretch the concept of national security, politicize economic and trade issues at every turn, suppress Chinese enterprises in the United States, restrict Chinese investment in the United States, create market access barriers, and advocate "decoupling and severing supply chains," which serves no one's interests and will only shrink the intersection of interests between the two sides. President Xi Jinping pointed out that cooperation is a two-way street, and the stability of China-U.S. economic and trade relations requires both lengthening the list of cooperation and shortening the list of problems. The U.S. side should treat Chinese enterprises fairly, uphold the spirit of equality, respect, and mutual benefit, and find a way out of problems through dialogue and negotiation. The two sides should move toward each other, adhere to the orientation of mutually beneficial and win-win outcomes, and promote the sustained, stable, and sound development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations to better benefit the two peoples.

China-U.S. law enforcement cooperation has effectively safeguarded the lives and property of the two peoples and raised the "safety factor" of the development of bilateral relations. Fentanyl abuse has inflicted wounds on many American families that are difficult to heal. Although this problem was not caused by China, the Chinese side, proceeding from humanitarianism and the overall interests of China-U.S. relations, has always provided assistance to the U.S. side in addressing the fentanyl crisis with the greatest goodwill and the utmost effort. Since the Beijing meeting, the Chinese side has again added precursor chemicals to its controlled list and strengthened export supervision, and has jointly cracked multiple drug-related cases with the U.S. side, demonstrating China's sincerity. The two heads of state instructed the law enforcement departments of both sides to continue strengthening cooperation and jointly combat transnational crime.

Wang Yi said that those who act will always succeed (为者常成, wei zhe chang cheng - "doer, always, succeed"), and those who walk will always arrive. Facts have proven that China and the United States can accomplish a series of major and good things through cooperation. Every progress in China-U.S. relations has brought tangible benefits to the international community. All departments and at all levels on both sides should implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state with a nail-spirited approach, not failing to do good because it is small, and not doing evil because it is small, achieving mutual benefit and win-win outcomes in practical cooperation, achieving mutual success in healthy competition, and jointly creating a brighter future for China-U.S. relations.

III. Building New Bridges of China-U.S. Friendship

Wang Yi said that people-to-people connectivity provides solid strength and lasting momentum for the development of China-U.S. relations. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, the hope of China-U.S. relations lies in the people, the foundation lies in the grassroots, the future lies in the youth, and the vitality lies in the localities. "Ping-pong diplomacy" knocked open the door of exchanges between China and the United States that had been closed for many years, the "Guling bond" carries forward a friendship spanning a century, Iowa has witnessed the touching story of local cooperation, and the trickles of exchanges between the two peoples have converged into the source of living water nourishing the development of bilateral relations.

During this visit, President Xi Jinping repeatedly mentioned the high points of China-U.S. people-to-people friendship: the two peoples fought side by side in World War II, and Chinese soldiers and civilians rescued hundreds of American pilots at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Chinese desertification fighter Yin Yuzhen and American friend Sai Kesai reunited in China after more than 20 years, and the saplings planted in the desert back then have grown into a forest. Sincere words and moving stories resonated strongly with people from all walks of life in both countries. President Trump also recounted in his remarks the historical experience of China and the United States becoming allies in World War II and the two peoples joining hands to win the war, saying that U.S.-China friendship spans thousands of miles and has lasted for over a hundred years, and expressing willingness to continue cultivating the friendship between the two countries to bring lasting prosperity and security to future generations. "The relationship between countries lies in the affinity between their peoples." The mutual understanding and affinity between peoples is the warmest and most powerful, enough to break down barriers, clear away noise, and let the vast Pacific connect the two sides.

To promote China-U.S. people-to-people and cultural exchanges, President Xi Jinping announced a series of new measures. On the basis of completing the goal of the "5-year, 50,000" initiative two and a half years ahead of schedule, President Xi Jinping announced that in the next five years, China will invite 100,000 American youths to China for exchange and study. From 50,000 to 100,000, what has grown is not just the number, but also the action of expanding youth exchanges and accumulating youthful strength for China-U.S. friendship. The most welcome good news for the American people is that giant pandas "Pingping" and "Fushuang" will soon settle at Zoo Atlanta. Giant pandas are envoys of friendship, deeply loved by the American people, and the panda bond between the two countries has spanned more than half a century. The arrival of "Pingping" and "Fushuang" will add another chapter of goodwill to China-U.S. friendship. "Rose diplomacy" was another highlight of this visit. When President Trump visited Zhongnanhai in May, he expressed great appreciation for Chinese roses. A few months later, Chinese roses, carrying the good wishes of the Chinese people, crossed the ocean to the White House in the United States, becoming a new symbol of friendship between the two countries.

It is worth noting that President Trump and his wife invited President Xi Jinping and his wife to jointly visit the U.S. National Archives, which was comparable to President Xi Jinping's invitation to President Trump to visit the Temple of Heaven in May, reflecting the two major countries' understanding and respect for each other's history and culture. China and the United States have different cultural traditions and social systems, but differences do not necessarily lead to confrontation; rather, they provide broad space for exchange and mutual learning.

The warm and gracious first-lady diplomacy injected soft power into this visit. Professor Peng Liyuan accompanied President Xi Jinping on his visit to the United States and, at the invitation of First Lady Melania Trump, jointly visited the National Museum of Asian Art, where they enjoyed American youth choir performances of Chinese songs such as "Jasmine Flower," experiencing the fusion of art and resonance of music, and bringing the hearts of the two peoples closer.

Wang Yi stated that only by connecting hearts can friendship last long. For China-U.S. relations to continue moving forward, both the "handshake" at the head-of-state level and the "hand-holding" of ordinary people are needed. Under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, we will continue to build bridges and pave roads for China-U.S. people-to-people and cultural exchanges, broaden channels and provide momentum for exchanges and cooperation in youth, education, culture, tourism, sports, and other fields, so that the tree of friendship between the two peoples can take deeper root and grow higher.

IV. Demonstrating New Responsibility as Major Countries

Wang Yi said that in the face of a volatile and intertwined international situation, the global significance of China-U.S. relations has become more prominent. Whether in addressing global challenges or cooling down hotspot issues, constructive interaction between China and the United States is indispensable. President Xi Jinping pointed out that although China-U.S. cooperation cannot solve all problems in the world, without cooperation between the two countries, many problems in the world would be difficult to solve. President Trump stated that the United States and China working together will lay a solid foundation for peace and prosperity in the world for decades to come. During this visit, the two heads of state had in-depth exchanges of views on major international and regional issues of common concern and agreed to strengthen coordination and make due contributions to world peace and development.

The continued tension in the Gulf and the Middle East has impacted global energy security, the geopolitical landscape, and the international order. As a responsible major country, China has always been a firm builder of peace in the Middle East, a promoter of stability, and a supporter of development. President Xi Jinping has successively put forward a series of initiatives and propositions dedicated to peace and stability in the Middle East, which have received broad recognition and positive response from the international community. During this visit, President Xi Jinping emphasized that the sovereignty and security of all countries should be respected, encouraged all parties to adhere to peaceful choices, supported the United States and Iran in returning to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, resuming dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible, and ultimately reaching a comprehensive agreement including on the nuclear issue. International opinion highly praised China's objective and impartial position, believing that China focuses on the root causes of problems, emphasizes addressing both symptoms and root causes, respects the sovereignty of all countries, promotes dialogue and consultation, and plays a constructive role in cooling down the situation in the Middle East, expecting China to provide Chinese solutions and Chinese wisdom for the resolution of more hotspot issues.

The healthy, safe, and orderly development of artificial intelligence bears on the future of humanity and cannot be separated from China-U.S. collaboration. During this visit, President Xi Jinping had in-depth communication with President Trump on artificial intelligence, pointing out that both China and the United States are major AI countries with the capability and the responsibility to develop and manage AI well, ensuring that AI development always remains under human control and benefits the people. China and the United States should each leverage their strengths rather than guard against each other. The two heads of state agreed to make good use of the China-U.S. AI dialogue mechanism, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and jointly prevent AI from being abused and misused.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials. China and the United States are both permanent members of the UN Security Council, and upholding the postwar international order and preventing the revival of militarism is a common responsibility of both sides.

China and the United States will respectively host the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and the G20 Leaders' Summit in the fourth quarter of this year. The two heads of state confirmed mutual support, continuously injecting momentum into Asia-Pacific cooperation and global governance.

In conclusion, Wang Yi said that this historic visit enriched the connotation of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations, safeguarded the overall stability of China-U.S. relations, created and wrote a new chapter of the times in China-U.S. relations, and will have a profound impact on the cause of world peace and development. From "meeting in Beijing" to "meeting in Washington," President Xi Jinping has always led China-U.S. relations to proceed steadily and far with far-sighted strategic vision and a broad mind of benefiting the world. President Xi Jinping's calm and confident leadership demeanor left a deep impression on all sectors of the United States, inspired the enthusiasm of the American people to approach and understand China, and sowed seeds of friendship in American society. In just one month, President Xi Jinping made three overseas visits, radiating to neighboring countries, linking up with the Global South, and orchestrating the overall diplomatic landscape, making China's vision more popular, the role of major countries more prominent, and international influence further enhanced. We must continue to deeply understand and practice Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, and with a more vigorous spirit and firmer will to strive, make every effort to open up new prospects for major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and create a more favorable international environment and provide more solid strategic support for comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization.

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Keep polishing the national calling card of "safety"

By: 本报记者 亓玉昆

National prosperity and the people's peace and security are the most fundamental and universal aspiration of the people, and also an important goal for which our Party strives.

General Secretary Xi Jinping is constantly bearing in mind (念兹在兹, nian zi zai zi - "think, this, stay, this") the building of a Safe China.

"Building a Safe China at a higher level bears on the flourishing of our cause, bears on the people's wonderful life, and bears on the country's long-term social stability and peace."

"Adapting to the developments and changes in the situation and tasks, the building of a Safe China can only be strengthened, and must not be weakened."

"We must unswervingly and steadfastly (坚定不移, jian ding bu yi - "firm, steady, not, move") implement the holistic approach to national security, and continue to exert sustained effort on making the country safer, society more orderly, governance more effective, and the people more satisfied, so as to push the building of a Safe China to a higher level."

On the new journey of the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has continuously improved the national security leadership system and the systems of rule of law, strategy, policy, and risk prevention and control, improved the social governance system, strengthened the overall prevention and control of public security, made every effort to raise the level of public safety governance, resolutely safeguarded national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and successfully continued to write a new chapter in the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability. "Safety" has already become a shining national calling card of China.

National security has been comprehensively strengthened

Strengthening the national security system and capacity building, safeguarding national economic security, raising the level of public safety governance... Opening the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, a series of important deployments in the field of national security attract attention.

On April 15, 2014, at the first meeting of the Central National Security Commission, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively put forward the holistic approach to national security, providing fundamental guidance and a guide to action for doing a good job in national security work in the new era.

Under the scientific guidance of the holistic approach to national security, we have blazed a path of national security with Chinese characteristics, national security has been comprehensively strengthened, and we have withstood the tests of risks and challenges from the political, economic, ideological, and natural spheres.

Establishing the Central National Security Commission, improving the national security leadership system, establishing and improving the working systems and mechanisms for social governance and for maintaining political security and social stability... A series of measures have formed an overall joint force for building a Safe China, effectively enhanced national security capabilities, and consolidated the cornerstone of the country's long-term social stability and peace.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The building of a Safe China is for the people, and also relies on the people."

Recently, ShanghaiTech University organized more than 500 new students to go to the Shanghai National Security Education Hall to carry out the themed practical activity "National Security, Youth Guarding." Through forms such as realistic scenario simulation and interactive experiences, the students systematically studied the core essence of the holistic approach to national security and gained an in-depth understanding of typical cases in fields such as science and technology security and cybersecurity.

"With the National Security Law as the guide, the building of the rule of law in China's national security has pressed the 'accelerator button,' successively promulgating or revising more than 30 laws related to national security, more than 60 supporting administrative regulations, and nearly 500 local regulations, further improving the national security legal system." During the activity, the docent, combining the achievements of national security in the new era, explained profound matters in a simple, easy-to-understand way (深入浅出, shen ru qian chu - "deep, enter, shallow, go out") the national security laws and regulations.

With the extensive publicity of the holistic approach to national security and the in-depth development of national security education for all the people, "national security is everyone's responsibility" has become the ideological consensus and conscious action of the broad masses of the people.

Fishermen who salvage foreign espionage devices and proactively report them, enterprise employees who discover suspicious clues and promptly reflect them, college students who identify cyber espionage traps and actively report them... The "glimmers of light" from hundreds of millions of people converge into a mighty force for guarding the family and the country, consolidating the political, social, and popular foundations for safeguarding national security.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "further establish the concept that development is the hard truth, and security is also the hard truth."

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's food security has been strongly guaranteed, with annual grain output remaining steadily above 1.3 trillion jin, and the rice bowls of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people are held more firmly;

The foundation for energy supply guarantee is solid, having built the world's most complete and largest energy system in terms of categories and scale;

Proactively preventing and defusing risks in key areas such as finance involving the public, real estate, and labor relations, and holding the bottom line of not having systemic risks;

Firmly grasping the fundamental requirement of coordinating development and security, running security through the entire process and all aspects of development, the building of a Safe China has been solidly advanced, safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern, and propelling the giant ship of China braving the waves and storms (劈波斩浪, pi bo zhan lang - "split, waves, chop, waves") and moving steadily to achieve long-term success (行稳致远, xing wen zhi yuan - "walk, steady, reach, far").

"Chinese-style sense of security" widely praised

A country prospers through security, and the people are happy through safety.

"Enabling the people to enjoy a safe and stable living and working environment is an important goal of China's governance." General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed this out on international occasions.

China is one of the safest countries in the world, with one of the lowest crime rates and one of the lowest homicide rates.

The data is evidence. In 2025, the national public sense of security was 98.23%, remaining above 98% for 6 consecutive years; in 2025, the number of criminal case filings decreased by 12.8% year-on-year, the lowest since the beginning of this century, and in the first half of 2026, it decreased by another 16.5% year-on-year; in 2025, the number of homicide cases decreased by 8.7% year-on-year, and in the first half of 2026, it decreased by another 11.4% year-on-year.

"Dare to go out late at night," "nothing gets stolen even when unattended," "strangers are very warm-hearted"... This "Chinese-style sense of security" can also be corroborated by the praise of foreign tourists.

In recent years, China's inbound tourism has continued to heat up. Data released by the National Immigration Administration shows that in the first half of 2026, the number of inbound foreigners reached 22.914 million, an increase of 20.4% year-on-year.

The rising heat of inbound tourism is inseparable from China's "reassurance visible everywhere." China's good public security environment has won widespread praise among overseas tourists, providing strong support for the sustained development of inbound tourism.

Mafia-like and evil forces are a cancer on society. In recent years, all localities have maintained a high-pressure posture of cracking down on problems as soon as they emerge (露头就打, lu tou jiu da - "show, head, then, hit") against mafia-like and evil crimes, the public security situation has continued to improve, the grassroots foundation has been comprehensively consolidated, and the development environment has been continuously optimized.

A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2025, the people's satisfaction with the fight against mafia-like and evil forces was 94.55%, remaining at a high level above 92% for 7 consecutive years.

With the rapid development of informatization, traditional mafia-like and evil crimes and internet crimes are intertwined, and some new types of mafia-like and evil crimes seriously endanger the personal and property safety of the people.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized resolutely cracking down on mafia-like and evil forces and their "protective umbrellas," and never allowing them to harm the people again.

Facing the new situation and new challenges, in July this year, a one-year special campaign to deepen the fight against mafia-like and evil forces was launched across the country.

The people's courts acted swiftly, directing the edge of the crackdown at the various mafia-like and evil force crimes and violations that the people reflect most strongly and detest most deeply.

At the end of August, the People's Court of Jizhou District, Tianjin, and some other courts across the country publicly pronounced first-instance judgments on 12 mafia-like and evil crime cases, sentencing 12 mafia-like and evil criminal organizations and 163 defendants to penalties ranging from life imprisonment to fixed-term imprisonment of 10 months in accordance with the law.

The cases publicly pronounced in this round highlighted the strict legal crackdown on mafia-like and evil criminal organizations that use network platforms and "soft violence" means to organically carry out illegal lending, illegal debt collection, labor fraud, and other crimes, the strict legal punishment of mafia-like and evil forces such as "market bullies" and "street bullies," and the strict legal punishment of mafia-like and evil criminal organizations that manipulate minors to commit crimes and infringe upon the rights and interests of minors, effectively maintaining social stability and the people's peace.

"Don't blindly believe in the free physical examinations of so-called 'experts,' don't pay high treatment fees, and be vigilant against fraud targeting the elderly!" Recently, Beijing police smashed a fraud gang specifically targeting the elderly, and summarized typical cases, distilled anti-fraud guidelines, and carried out concentrated publicity.

In recent years, the means of telecommunications and network fraud crimes have been constantly renewed, and fraud "scripts" have taken on a dazzling variety of forms. The Ministry of Public Security has deployed public security organs nationwide to take the initiative, continuously carry out a series of special operations, strictly crack down on telecommunications and network fraud crimes, and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the people.

According to statistics, in 2025, public security organs solved a total of 258,000 telecommunications and network fraud cases; in the first half of this year, the number of filed fraud crime cases decreased by 15.6% year-on-year, and 2.926 million people were met with and dissuaded; since October 2025, the number of fraud cases has decreased year-on-year for 11 consecutive months.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that safety is the primary need of the people after they have solved the problem of food and clothing, is an extremely important livelihood issue, and is also the most basic development environment.

One thunderous operation after another, one practical measure after another, have continuously enhanced the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security.

The foundation of social governance is more solid

If the grassroots are strong, the country is strong; if the grassroots are secure, the world is secure.

The "Fengqiao model" is a valuable experience in China's grassroots governance, is an indigenous Chinese wisdom and Eastern experience, and has been continuously enriched and developed in the new era.

In September 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Fengqiao Town, Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, the birthplace of the "Fengqiao model," visited the Fengqiao Model Exhibition Hall, learned about the vivid practice of the "Fengqiao model" in the new era, and emphasized that "the 'Fengqiao model' of the new era must be upheld and developed well."

To build a Safe China at a higher level, it is necessary to strengthen the overall prevention and control of public security.

In recent years, all localities have upheld and developed the "Fengqiao model" of the new era, made the prevention and resolution of contradictions and disputes a work priority, vigorously promoted the standardized construction of comprehensive governance centers, and have so far achieved full coverage with the establishment of 2,849 county-level comprehensive governance centers and 38,500 township-level comprehensive governance centers.

Family troubles, property disputes, industry contradictions... In 2025, comprehensive governance centers successfully resolved 9.746 million contradictions and disputes, and in the first half of 2026, county-level comprehensive governance centers across the country accepted 7.679 million contradictions and disputes, with their role in absorbing and resolving contradictions and disputes becoming increasingly prominent, and "go to the comprehensive governance center when there is a problem" gradually becoming a consensus.

Small matters do not leave the village, major matters do not leave the township, and contradictions are not passed upward.

In Annan Township, Qingyuan County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, due to a dispute over homestead boundaries, villagers Zhang Mou and Li Mou had harbored grudges for many years, with constant friction, and nearly came to blows. After learning of the situation, the local comprehensive governance center, linking up with mediation forces such as veteran Party member Wu Bangguang and Anxi Police Station officer Wu Sihua, resolved to chew on this "hard bone."

After spending a great deal of time clarifying the ins and outs and the focus of the dispute, with a square table and a few chairs, they carried out mediation, within the bounds of the law while also taking into account local customs and human feelings, gradually loosening the knots in the hearts of the two families. In only 4 days, the grudge that had lasted more than 40 years was resolved, and the two families shook hands and made peace.

In October 2024, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Tongcheng City, Anhui Province for an inspection, learned about the history of the Six-Foot Lane and its inheritance, and emphasized that "contradictions among the people must be resolved through mediation."

As the "first line of defense" for maintaining social stability, people's mediation is a vivid practice of the "Fengqiao model" in the new era and plays a fundamental role in the diversified mechanism for resolving contradictions and disputes.

"Thank you so much! Without going to court, we were able to get the compensation and wages back!" In the mediation room of the Jiahu Judicial Office of the Longnan City Judicial Bureau in Jiangxi Province, migrant worker Yang Mou held the mediator's hand, extremely excited.

A dispute arising from an injury during the construction of high-standard farmland was satisfactorily resolved through the efforts of the mediators, effectively preventing further intensification of the contradiction.

Nowadays, judicial administrative organs continue to deepen the work pattern based on people's mediation with the linkage and coordination of various types of mediation, and solidly carry out the source prevention, investigation and early warning, and mediation and resolution of contradictions and disputes.

At present, there are 697,000 people's mediation committees and 3.102 million people's mediators nationwide, basically forming a mediation organization network covering urban and rural communities and key areas and units.

While cracking down on and punishing crimes in accordance with the law and holding the bottom line of safety and stability, judicial organs also pay attention to the source governance of cases.

In response to loopholes in fields such as public security and medical and health care, the Intermediate People's Court of Zhongwei City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, issued judicial suggestions to relevant departments, promoting the investigation and rectification of safety hazards around the people;

In response to problems such as loopholes in food safety supervision, procuratorial organs in places such as Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, issued suggestions, promoting market supervision departments to improve mechanisms and safeguard the people's "safety on the tip of the tongue"...

Through the high-quality and efficient issuance of judicial suggestions and procuratorial suggestions, judicial organs explore deep-level social governance problems from individual cases and contribute the strength of the rule of law to the building of a Safe China.

A Safe China is universally recognized; China's governance has far-reaching influence.

Striving forward in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, striving to build a Safe China at a higher level will surely create a safer and more stable social environment for Chinese modernization. A beautiful picture of political stability, social order, and the people's peace is unfolding gradually and steadily (徐徐铺展, xu xu pu zhan - "slowly, slowly, spread, unfold") across the land of China.

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Han Zheng Meets with UN Secretary-General António Guterres

(People's Daily, United Nations, September 26) (Reporter Li Zhiwei) On September 25 local time, Vice President Han Zheng met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, attended the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative hosted by China, and read out and delivered remarks on President Xi Jinping's congratulatory letter.

When meeting with Guterres, Han Zheng stated that the current international situation is one in which changes and chaos are intertwined (变乱交织, bian luan jiao zhi - "change, chaos, interweave"), and the international system centered on the United Nations faces multiple challenges. This year marks the 55th anniversary of the restoration of the People's Republic of China's lawful seat in the United Nations. Over the past 55 years, China has always upheld true multilateralism and supported the United Nations in playing a central role in international affairs. Upholding multilateralism and reforming and improving the global governance system are the common aspirations of the international community at present. Looking ahead, China will continue to play its role as a responsible major country, actively align its own concepts and initiatives with the UN agenda, and provide new opportunities for world development through new achievements in Chinese modernization.

Guterres thanked China for its firm and strong support for the cause of the United Nations, stating that China has played a key role in advancing important UN agendas and made significant contributions to global development. The United Nations is willing to further deepen cooperation with China to safeguard the common interests of the international community.

At the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative, Han Zheng stated that President Xi Jinping sent a special congratulatory letter, fully reflecting the high importance attached to this event. Over the past five years, under the personal promotion of President Xi Jinping, the Global Development Initiative has been transformed from China's conceptual proposition into a common international action, contributing Chinese solutions and Chinese strength to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China is willing to work hand in hand with all parties to make the initiative more profound and practical, so that the fruits of development benefit the people of all countries and make greater contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Maldivian Vice President Hussain Mohamed Latheef, and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith delivered remarks, with ministerial-level officials from more than 30 countries in attendance. More than 300 representatives from over 60 countries and more than 20 international organizations participated in the meeting. All parties highly commended the important role the Global Development Initiative has played over the past five years in assisting countries' sustainable development and advancing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, stating that the initiative provides strong momentum for global development, has been translated into tangible results in areas such as poverty reduction, food security, green development, and industrialization, benefiting the vast number of developing countries, and has made important contributions to building consensus on development and deepening international cooperation. They expressed their willingness to continue to firmly support the initiative, strengthen solidarity and coordination, and work together to create a more inclusive, more sustainable, and more resilient future.

Han Zheng also met with Kaha Imnadze, President of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, stating that China supports making sustainable development a priority of this session's work and responding to the expectations of the world's people with inclusive development outcomes.

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Building a Strong Nation: Sichuan University Strives for Excellence

By: 本报记者 张 帆 游 仪

The Min Mountains rise dark and vast, and the Jin River flows broad and deep. In September this year, Sichuan University will mark the 130th anniversary of its founding.

From the inception of modern learning at the Sichuan Chinese-Western School in 1896, to its mergers with Chengdu University of Science and Technology and West China University of Medical Sciences in 1994 and 2000 respectively, this institution of higher learning has always bound its own fate closely to the nation's development. Today, the university's overall strength in running the school has entered the first echelon of domestic universities.

On the new journey of the new era, Sichuan University adheres to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, forging souls and nurturing talent in the transmission of the red gene, scaling new heights in serving national strategies, and cultivating outstanding talents in facing the future, writing a contemporary answer sheet of a western university revitalizing the nation through education.

The Red Gene: Forging the Foundational Hue of Faith through Inheritance

Jiang Zhuyun (Sister Jiang), a revolutionary martyr of unyielding integrity, once studied here and is one of the university's most shining spiritual landmarks. In the Sichuan University Sister Jiang Memorial Hall, the exhibits quietly tell the story of the youth of this "model of revolutionary spirit among the sons and daughters of China." Since its opening in 2019, it has become an important venue for Party and Youth League activities organized by groups both on and off campus.

Red is the cultural foundation of Sichuan University.

As the cradle of the May Fourth Movement in Sichuan and one of the important birthplaces of the spread of Marxism in China, Sichuan University established the first Marxist reading society in the southwest and set up the earliest Communist Party of China organization in Sichuan. Zhang Lan, "benefactor and friend of the Party," and Wu Yuzhang, one of the "Five Elders of Yan'an," once presided over the university's affairs; Marshal Zhu De of the Republic, former President Yang Shangkun, literary giant Guo Moruo, and people's writer Ba Jin once studied here; and a large number of communist fighters such as Wang Youmu, Yang Angong, and Tong Yongsheng plunged into the revolutionary torrent from here.

Let the red gene merge into the blood of youth. Guided by the promotion of Sister Jiang's spiritual character, the university has established "Sister Jiang Classes," which now cover multiple colleges. From the College of Life Sciences to the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, from the School of Chemical Engineering to West China School of Clinical Medicine, students, inspired by Sister Jiang's spiritual character, integrate their personal aspirations into national development. Generation after generation of Sichuan University students, steeped in red culture, have strengthened their ideals and convictions and grown into new-era figures capable of shouldering the great task of national rejuvenation.

Let academic research promote ethnic unity. At the research base for forging a sense of community for the Chinese nation, Li Xuan, a professor from the School of History and Culture, leads students in deep scholarly work. Nearby, a striking slogan reads, "Let the story of the pomegranate seeds bloom on every inch of our land." This research institution, established in 2020, aims to explore the characteristics and laws of the aggregation and evolution of the Chinese nation and has been awarded the title of "National Model Collective for Ethnic Unity and Progress."

"Through comparison of multilingual documents, I have systematically examined the history of the dissemination of the concept of the 'Chinese nation' in the written languages of ethnic minorities," Li Xuan said. Every year, he spends at least one month conducting field research in ethnic regions to deepen theoretical research on the community of the Chinese nation.

Let rare and esoteric scholarship be passed down from generation to generation. The Chinese Folk Culture Research Institute is a major center for Dunhuang studies and vernacular language research in China. The late renowned scholar Xiang Chu, through more than half a century of dedication here, accomplished the transmission of the warmth of this rare and esoteric field. To fully grasp its profound mysteries, Xiang Chu read through the vast and voluminous literature (卷帙浩繁, juan zhi hao fan - "scrolls, vast, numerous") of the Tripitaka three times, combining various elements into a single whole (熔于一炉, rong yu yi lu - "melt, into, one, furnace") the study of language, documents, literature, and religion, and won back the "right to speak" for Chinese Dunhuang studies. Scholars represented by Zhou Yukai and He Jianping are continuously advancing the research enterprise initiated by Xiang Chu.

"When I was a student, Mr. Xiang taught us. A student would read a passage, and then the teacher would interpret it. With the teacher's guidance, even the most abstruse scholarship could be understood and mastered," said Wang Changlin, associate professor at the School of Literature, with deep feeling. "Dunhuang studies concerns cultural confidence, and there will always be people willing to carry it on."

Serving the Overall Situation: Standing Tall as the Backbone of the Times in Tackling Difficulties

Serving the country through scientific research and striving for strength through innovation is the unchanging pursuit of Sichuan University. The university focuses on the "four orientations" and perseveres unremittingly in serving high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology.

Seeking energy from the deep and distant seas. At Dongfang Heavy Machinery, a subsidiary of Dongfang Electric Group in Nansha District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, Liu Tao, a researcher at the Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology, has been particularly busy recently. "The original technology of Academician Xie Heping can directly electrolyze seawater to produce hydrogen as if it were pure water. We are currently conducting long-term stability verification of this technology."

In November 2022, the team of Academician Xie Heping published an original paper on direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production in the journal Nature, which was rated among the Top Ten Scientific Advances in China for 2022. Shortly after the paper was published, Dongfang Electric approached them, seeking the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Seeking breakthroughs in innovative drugs. "We do whatever the country needs," said Shao Zhenhua, deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy. Under the leadership of Academician Wei Yuquan, director of the laboratory, an innovation ecosystem of multidisciplinary intersection has been formed here. From drug target discovery to clinical translation, 13 pilot-scale production platforms cover the entire chain. Since 2023, 19 new drugs have obtained clinical trial approvals.

Shouldering responsibility in guarding life. On August 26, a mudslide disaster caused heavy casualties and missing persons at the Gyirong Port in Gyirong County, Shigatse City, Tibet. West China Hospital of Sichuan University dispatched a psychological rescue expert team to rush to the scene, providing psychological intervention and medical support to relocated and resettled residents and rescue workers. In recent years, West China Hospital has participated in nearly a hundred emergency medical responses and disaster emergency medical rescues at home and abroad. The West China telemedicine network has become China's largest telemedicine education and tiered collaborative medical system, with nearly 1,200 network hospitals.

Seeking the future in the vast firmament. As one of the first universities in China to engage in aerospace talent cultivation and scientific research, Sichuan University established its Department of Aeronautical Engineering as early as 1944. In 2025, the "Advanced Material Energy Conversion and Regeneration System" on-orbit experimental device developed by Sichuan University was successfully launched aboard the Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft. In 2026, the Sichuan University team was approved and received 200 milligrams of lunar soil samples from Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6, marking the university's official entry into the "real lunar soil" experimental research stage in key fields such as in-situ lunar resource utilization, extraterrestrial geomechanics, and space mining.

"We will continue to focus on national strategic needs, strengthen organized research, write papers on the motherland's land, apply research achievements where the country needs them most, and effectively enhance our support and contribution to the country and society," said Wang Jinsong, president of Sichuan University.

Talent Cultivation: Nurturing Future Pillars of the Nation through Diligent Work

Sichuan University has always kept in mind its original aspiration and founding mission of educating people for the Party and cultivating talent for the country. Each year, the university enrolls more than 60 percent of its undergraduate students and more than 70 percent of its graduate students from western China, and more than 60 percent of its graduates choose to take root in the west for employment and entrepreneurship.

In 1999, Sichuan University joined the "China Young Volunteers Poverty Alleviation Relay Program Postgraduate Teaching Corps." Over the past 27 years, 405 team members have taken turns going to the Daliang Mountains. In the past decade, they have helped 52 students gain admission to "Double First-Class" universities.

Let Chinese solutions go global. West China School of Stomatology is the birthplace of modern stomatology in China. In 2015, the school began independently developing virtual simulation dental training equipment, and today it has formed eight categories of training equipment covering all stages from the first to the fifth year of undergraduate study.

In June this year, the International Training Course on Advanced Diagnosis and Treatment Technology for Cleft Lip and Palate for Belt and Road Initiative countries was held at West China School of Stomatology, with 40 medical staff from 13 countries participating. Shen Jiefei, deputy Party secretary of West China School of Stomatology, said: "In the past, we sent students abroad; now, international trainees come to us to study."

Let innovative education stimulate potential. The university upholds an integrated talent cultivation philosophy of value shaping, ability cultivation, and knowledge transmission, and runs innovation and entrepreneurship education through the entire process and all courses of talent cultivation.

Since 2010, Sichuan University has explored higher-order learning through inquiry-based small-class classroom teaching, while also building a general education system characterized by "one goal, two main lines, three leading courses, ten selected courses, five major modules, and one hundred core courses." Students have won 85 gold awards in the China International College Students' Innovation Competition and the "Challenge Cup" competition, and four satellite payloads independently developed by the "Tian Ge Plan" team composed of undergraduates have been successfully launched into orbit and stationed on the Chinese Space Station.

The Jin River surges onward, carrying forward the torch of civilization; the Min Mountains stand tall and majestic, upholding the peak of faith.

Standing at the historical juncture of the 130th anniversary and looking back, Sichuan University's footsteps are engraved with the mark of walking alongside the motherland. This century-old institution, with its roots planted deep in the fertile soil of the west, its heart pressed close to the pulse of the motherland, and its gaze fixed on the world's frontiers, has cultivated more than 1.2 million graduates, injecting hope and strength into the great journey of national rejuvenation.

Gan Lin, Party secretary of Sichuan University, said that Sichuan University will serve national strategies, promote the implementation and effectiveness of the "Ascending the Heights," "Going Global," "Invigorating Energy," and "Refining Medicine" plans, and strive to answer well the contemporary examination question of "building a strong country, Sichuan University has a role to play."

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Echoes of Red on the Banks of the Jinsha River

By: 本报记者 杨文明 张 驰

In September, driving out of Shanle Village, Jiaopingdu Township, Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County, Kunming City, Yunnan, marigolds blaze brightly on both sides of the winding mountain road, with fields of crops "hung" on the slopes. After nearly 30 kilometers and seventeen or eighteen hairpin turns, the Jinsha River comes into view.

"The Jinsha's waters beat the cloud-capped cliffs, warming them." In May 1935, at Jiaopingdu Ferry, tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers, with the help of 37 boatmen, crossed the Jinsha River by wooden boat, breaking free from the enemy's pursuit and encirclement.

What meets the eye is still towering mountains and deep-flowing river waters, but the former natural barrier has become a thoroughfare — the new Jiaopingdu Bridge spans both banks like a long dragon lying on the waves.

In January 2020, during an inspection tour in Yunnan, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: "Yunnan has a glorious revolutionary tradition and many deeply moving and touching (感人肺腑, gan ren fei fu - "feel, touch, lungs, intestines") stories. These stories should be used as vivid teaching material for education on staying true to the Party's original aspiration and founding mission, guiding Party members and cadres to constantly examine and nourish their original aspiration, and constantly temper their political character of loyalty, integrity, and responsibility."

Thoroughly implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions, Yunnan actively utilizes its red resources, carries forward the great Long March spirit, anchors itself to green development, and inspires the broad masses of cadres and the people to walk the Long March road of the new era well.

Safeguarding red history, polishing the marks of revolution —

In Dangui Village, Kedu Township, Xundian Hui and Yi Autonomous County, Kunming City, at the Red Army Long March Kedu Memorial Hall, docent Gong Yuan is pointing at a 3D model of a musical clock, telling visitors the story of the Red Army returning the musical clock: "In early May 1935, Comrade Mao Zedong discovered a beautiful musical clock in the hands of his guard. Upon asking where it came from, he learned that the guard, feeling that the march required a timepiece, had picked it up when he saw it while lodging in Dangui Village. Comrade Mao Zedong ordered the guard to return it immediately..."

"This little musical clock bears witness to the Red Army's iron discipline," Gong Yuan said. "Today, digital means help us better use cultural relics to step into the magnificent sweep of history."

Weixin County, Zhaotong City, has invested a cumulative total of about 32 million yuan to complete restoration projects on 29 major revolutionary site relics and built red culture venues such as the Red Army Long March Slogan Museum; Xiangyun County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, has carried out naming and protection for all 44 revolutionary sites in the county, establishing a "one site, one card" archive for every red site; Qujing Economic and Technological Development Zone, centering on the Sanyuanggong Conference site, combines physical objects, historical images, and dynamic sand tables to tell the story of the Red Army's Long March well... Yunnan is accelerating the construction of the Long March National Cultural Park, going all out to implement projects for the protection and inheritance of red history, research and excavation, and supporting facilities.

Inheriting the red gene, promoting the integration of culture and tourism —

At the "Old Boatman's Home, Eight Camps" restaurant in Jinrui Community, Wudongde Town, Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County, operator Pei Xinhui serves up a steaming bowl of peanut and soybean dregs soup and opens up: "My maternal grandfather was Zhang Chaoman, an old boatman who helped the Red Army cross the Jinsha River. Grandfather always said the Red Army gave the boatmen thick porridge cooked from corn, red beans, and millet, while they themselves drank only thin gruel. The boatmen's descendants will never forget the Red Army's kindness — this peanut and soybean dregs soup is exactly the 'boatman's dish' from those days." Pei Xinhui also volunteers to tell red stories and spent over 1,000 yuan to acquire a wooden boat: "With a wooden boat, the stories feel more vivid."

In Yunnan, the "red +" integrated development model is taking root in many places.

Weixin County has built 11 study and research bases around the Zhaxi Conference's "one museum, three sites," forming 5 boutique study tour routes that have attracted more than 45,000 person-trips cumulatively; in Qijie Community, Dayao County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, bluestone-paved roads string together revolutionary relics and red culture landmarks, attracting more than 20,000 tourist visits in 2025... According to statistics, in 2025, the seven prefectures (cities) along the Long March route received a total of 811 million tourist visits, achieving total tourism expenditure of 837.44 billion yuan.

Taking root in the red fertile soil, nurturing a green future —

On the natural barrier of the Jinsha River that the Red Army fought so hard to break through during the Long March, world-class hydropower stations such as Wudongde, Baihetan, and Xiangjiaba now stand in sequence. As the world's second-largest hydropower project by installed capacity, the Baihetan Hydropower Station can generate an average of 62.443 billion kilowatt-hours per year, and its maximum daily generation can meet the daily living electricity needs of 148 million people.

By the Jinsha River, Qiaojia County, Zhaotong City, promotes standardized planting techniques and fills the gap in primary processing, enabling the green peppercorn industry to improve quality and efficiency and achieve scaled development, driving income growth for more than 46,000 farming households across 17 townships (subdistricts).

Leveraging its green electricity advantage, Yunnan Shuifu Economic and Technological Development Zone has formed a new energy battery industry cluster covering cathode and anode materials and cell manufacturing, with the total industrial output value of the new energy battery and supporting industries reaching 3.16 billion yuan in 2025. At present, Yunnan's clean energy installed capacity accounts for more than 90% of total installed power capacity. In the first eight months of this year, Yunnan's green electricity trading volume reached 1.177 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 124%.

The journey is as magnificent as a rainbow, the spirit as bright as a torch — the great Long March spirit is continuously being transformed into the driving force for high-quality development across the land of Yunnan.

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Giant "Blessings to the Motherland" Flower Basket Unveiled at Tiananmen Square

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) (Reporter Pan Junqiang) The giant flower basket "Blessings to the Motherland" officially made its debut on September 26 at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, with 10 groups of three-dimensional flower displays beautifying the area along Chang'an Avenue.

It is understood that this year, the floral arrangements at Tiananmen Square and along Chang'an Avenue are themed "Striving for the 15th Five-Year Plan, Marching Forward on a New Journey." The "Blessings to the Motherland" flower display at the center of Tiananmen Square features a festive fruit-and-flower basket as its main scene, with a base diameter of 45 meters, patterned with peonies. The basket contains 15 types of flowers and 5 types of fruits, each chosen for their auspicious meanings.

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China and the U.S. Reach Consensus on Eight Outcomes

(Xinhua News Agency, Washington, September 25) From September 23 to 25 local time, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United States. During the visit, the heads of state of the two countries exchanged in-depth views on a constructive and strategically stable China-U.S. relationship and major international and regional issues, reaching a consensus on eight outcomes, including:

I. The two sides agreed to build a "constructive and strategically stable China-U.S. relationship based on respect, fairness, and reciprocity."

II. The two sides agreed to mutually support each other in hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders' Meeting and the Group of Twenty (G20) Leaders' Summit. The heads of state of the two countries intend to attend the meetings hosted by the other side.

III. The heads of state of the two countries agreed that Iran should fulfill its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons, and that no country or institution shall levy tolls on international waterways.

IV. The heads of state of the two countries recalled that China and the United States were allies in World War II, fighting side by side (并肩作战, bing jian zuo zhan - "side by side, fight, fight") to win the war.

V. The heads of state of the two countries recognized the positive role of the China-U.S. economic and trade consultation mechanism and the outcomes of the consultations between the two sides' economic and trade teams, including the establishment and advancement of mechanisms such as a trade council, the reaching of a "30 billion U.S. dollars" reciprocal tariff reduction arrangement, the extension of the outcomes of the Kuala Lumpur economic and trade consultations, and instructed that these be implemented.

VI. Cooperation between Chinese and U.S. drug enforcement authorities has achieved visible results. Recently, the two sides have worked closely together to jointly crack down on multiple cases involving new psychoactive substances and precursor chemicals, and have arrested dozens of related criminal suspects in both countries.

VII. The two sides agreed to establish a China-U.S. dialogue on artificial intelligence to exchange views on the risks and benefits related to AI. The next dialogue will be held in November this year. The two sides agreed to establish communication channels on AI incidents.

VIII. The U.S. side welcomed the arrival in the United States of a pair of giant pandas leased by China to the Atlanta Zoo.

In addition, the Chinese and U.S. militaries also agreed to sign as soon as possible a memorandum of understanding on strengthening crisis communication and prevention, and to continue cooperating in the search for the remains of missing U.S. military personnel in China.

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Release positive signals of moving toward each other, peaceful coexistence, and mutually beneficial cooperation

From September 23 to 25, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United States. The two heads of state further expanded the connotation of the new positioning of China-U.S. relations, affirmed the importance of respect, fairness, and reciprocity, and agreed to build a "constructive and strategically stable relationship based on respect, fairness, and reciprocity," providing clearer strategic guidance for China and the United States to explore the way for major countries to get along with each other. International public opinion paid close attention to President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States. Media reports from many countries believed that the meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state in Washington was of great significance. The two heads of state reached many new consensuses, releasing a positive signal of China and the United States moving forward in the same direction (相向而行, xiang xiang er xing - "toward, toward, each, go"), peaceful coexistence, and a win-win situation for all parties (互利共赢, hu li gong ying - "mutual, benefit, together, win"), injecting new impetus into the stable, healthy, and sustainable development of bilateral relations and adding hope to world peace and development.

"Leading the constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States to achieve new development"

The Russian newspaper Kommersant's website reported that this was the second meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state within the year, following the Beijing meeting in May. President Xi Jinping's visit had a rich agenda, with both sides conducting in-depth communication on China-U.S. relations and major international and regional issues, continuing the positive effects of the Beijing meeting and "leading the constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States to achieve new development."

The BBC website reported that against the backdrop of persistent differences between China and the United States, the meeting between the top leaders of the two countries in itself injected critical stability into the turbulent international situation.

Pakistan's Daily Pakistan website reported that President Xi Jinping's state visit to the United States, the first in 11 years, was of important historical significance. The two countries are actively exploring the correct way for major countries to get along with each other.

Singapore's CNA reported that President Xi Jinping emphasized during the visit that "for the two major countries of China and the United States, cooperation brings mutual benefit while conflict causes mutual harm" (合则两利、斗则俱伤, he ze liang li, dou ze ju shang - "join, then, two, benefit; fight, then, all, suffer)" and that "China and the United States need not shy away from competition, but competition should be benign and bounded." U.S. President Trump said that U.S.-China relations have made tremendous progress. The two sides conducted in-depth communication on some key issues.

France's Le Monde reported that in May this year, at the Beijing meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state, the two sides unanimously decided to build a constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States. At this Washington meeting, the two sides further expanded the connotation of the new positioning of China-U.S. relations.

Switzerland's swissinfo.ch website reported that this was President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States in 11 years. Despite differences between China and the United States, both sides have the willingness to maintain dialogue and communication.

Portugal's Jornal de Notícias reported that the Chinese side stated that China and the United States should strengthen communication and peaceful coexistence, emphasizing that "the two major countries of China and the United States shoulder the historic responsibility of promoting human development and progress."

Mexico's El Financiero reported that head-of-state diplomacy plays an important role in maintaining communication and stabilizing relations between China and the United States, and the positive statements from both sides demonstrated the success of this meeting.

India's The Indian Express reported that during the three-day visit to the United States, President Xi Jinping stated that the two countries should become partners rather than rivals, and pointed out that the constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States should better benefit the people of both countries and the people of all countries in the world.

Pakistan's The News reported, citing the results of a survey study, that before and after this meeting, American companies significantly increased their orders to Chinese manufacturers, indicating that businesses in both countries hope that a stable relationship can be maintained between the world's two largest economies.

"Will have an important impact on the global development of artificial intelligence"

During this visit, the Chinese and U.S. heads of state reached an eight-point consensus of outcomes, including agreement by both sides to establish a China-U.S. dialogue on artificial intelligence to exchange views on the risks and benefits related to artificial intelligence. The two sides also agreed to establish communication channels for artificial intelligence incidents.

The website of the Russian weekly news magazine Argumenty i Fakty reported and analyzed that this meeting helps the two countries strengthen dialogue and communication in the field of artificial intelligence.

Egypt's Al-Ahram Weekly published an article stating that the Chinese and U.S. heads of state have maintained communication through various means, jointly steering the ship of China-U.S. relations. On global issues such as artificial intelligence safety, there is broad space for cooperation between the two countries.

Spain's Radio Nacional de España reported that the two sides agreed to establish a China-U.S. dialogue on artificial intelligence, which is of great significance for preventing the abuse and malicious use of artificial intelligence and maintaining human control over artificial intelligence technology.

South Africa's Business Day reported: "The signal of cooperation released by the two countries will have an important impact on the global development of artificial intelligence."

The United Arab Emirates' The National commented that the policy directions of China and the United States in the fields of energy and technology will have a profound impact on the economic development of Gulf countries.

"A more stable China-U.S. relationship brings more certainty to the world"

President Xi Jinping emphasized that although China-U.S. cooperation cannot solve all problems in the world, without cooperation between the two countries, many problems in the world would be difficult to solve. This important statement resonated strongly with international public opinion.

Thailand's The Nation published an article stating that the people of China and the United States have maintained friendly exchanges for a long time, and the interests of the two countries are deeply intertwined. The realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again are two things proceeding simultaneously without conflict (并行不悖, bing xing bu bei - "parallel, walk, not, contradict"). The expectations of the international community for China and the United States have also not changed.

Russia's TASS news agency reported that the Washington meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state confirmed the two countries' building of a "constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States based on respect, fairness, and reciprocity," releasing a positive signal to the international community regarding the development of China-U.S. relations, which helps stabilize market expectations and the global geopolitical situation.

"The meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state is of great significance for Africa, because the tone of China-U.S. relations can affect the broader global environment, especially its increasingly important impact on global trade and investment." Kenya's Citizen Digital website published an article stating that increased predictability in the relationship between the world's two largest economies will provide African countries with a more stable external environment.

Rwanda's The New Times focused on the new consensuses reached at the Washington meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state and the future development of China-U.S. relations. The report believed that this meeting provided new strategic guidance for building a constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States, and held that both sides should strive to translate this vision into concrete actions. The report stated: "A more stable China-U.S. relationship brings more certainty to the world, and cooperation between the two sides in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence will provide new public goods for global governance." The newspaper also quoted Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Nduhungirehe as saying that Rwanda hopes China and the United States will cooperate on issues that go beyond bilateral relations, and that China-U.S. cooperation will have a broader impact on Africa. "We hope to see less tension and more cooperation between the world's two largest economies, thereby benefiting the African continent and the whole world," Nduhungirehe said.

Mexico's La Jornada stated that Mexico highly appreciates the Chinese side's view that the development goals of China and the United States are two things proceeding simultaneously without conflict. The Washington meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state has important global significance and will promote the improvement of bilateral relations and bring more certainty to international trade.

Argentina's Política Argentina published an article stating that strengthening dialogue, managing differences, and conducting cooperation between China and the United States not only concerns the two countries themselves but also helps enhance the stability of the external environment in which Global South countries find themselves.

Colombia's weekly magazine Semana reported with special attention to the efforts made by China and the United States in areas such as people-to-people and cultural exchanges and interactions between the two peoples, holding that the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again are two things proceeding simultaneously without conflict, and that cooperation between the two countries will jointly benefit the world.

(People's Daily, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, Bangkok, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Mexico City, September 26   reporters Li Yan, Guan Haoyu, Xiao Xinxin, Zhao Yipu, Zhang Jinruo, Shang Kaiyuan, Liu Zhonghua, Yan Huan, Chen Haiqi, Jiao Xiang, Wang Xuchen, Dai Kairan, Huang Weixin, Cheng Shijie)

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Building a Stronger Bridge of U.S.-China Friendship (International Forum)

By: 嘉兰惠

The heads of state of the United States and China met face to face once again. For two major countries like the United States and China, which share broad common interests yet also have differences, maintaining high-level exchanges is very important. The understanding, trust, and friendship built up between the two peoples through long-term interactions are likewise an important foundation for maintaining steady and long-term progress (行稳致远, xing wen zhi yuan - "walk, steady; arrive, far") in U.S.-China relations.

My family has deep ties to the Flying Tigers, which gives me an especially profound understanding of the importance of people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. During World War II, the American and Chinese peoples fought side by side (并肩作战, bing jian zuo zhan - "side, shoulder, fight, battle") for a common goal, forging deep bonds of friendship amid the flames of war. Though they spoke different languages and came from different cultural backgrounds, they trusted and relied on each other in the most difficult of times. The story of the Flying Tigers is a story of friendship, courage, sacrifice, and trust — a story of the two peoples reaching out to help each other and walking forward hand in hand when each was needed by the other. This history fully demonstrates that even when the United States and China have differences and bilateral relations have gone through twists and turns, the two peoples have always been able to find common goals, and the bond of exchanges and cooperation between the two sides has been able to endure.

The significance of remembering the history of the Flying Tigers lies not only in looking back at the past, but also in drawing wisdom from that immortal chapter and illuminating the future. My grandfather, General Chennault, treasured deeply the friendship between the American and Chinese peoples. From the spiritual legacy he left behind, I have come to appreciate deeply that maintaining peace is sometimes more difficult than engaging in war, and that safeguarding peace especially requires communication, understanding, and trust. In those hard years when the world was in a precarious or unstable situation (风雨飘摇, feng yu piao yao - "wind, rain, float, shake"), the Flying Tigers built a bridge of friendship spanning mountains and seas between the two countries. Today, the United States and China need to create more opportunities for people-to-people exchanges, continuously expand exchanges and cooperation in fields such as education, culture, commerce and trade, scientific research, and aviation, and carry forward this friendship in new ways.

Youth exchanges are key to carrying forward the friendship between the two countries and cementing the bond between their peoples. As a descendant of the Flying Tigers, I have always felt that I bear a responsibility — to let the younger generation understand this history of the United States and China fighting side by side, and to pass on the spirit of the Flying Tigers from generation to generation. When the younger generation truly comes to understand the stories of those who came before them and steps into each other's countries, the understanding they form is often richer than the knowledge gained through news reports and books. I have seen with my own eyes students participating in U.S.-China people-to-people and cultural exchanges walk into China, come to know and befriend Chinese youth, and experience Chinese life and culture firsthand — broadening their horizons while bringing back genuine impressions and sincere friendships. All sincere transnational friendships in this world begin with mutual understanding, are sustained through mutual commitment, and endure through mutual tolerance. When young people from the United States and China sit together, sharing their stories and listening to each other's voices, the shared goodwill, shared pursuits, and shared visions of both sides become ever clearer.

At present, U.S.-China relations stand at a new historical starting point, and the times call for more "Flying Tiger heroes." Unlike the Flying Tiger predecessors who once took to the skies in aircraft, the envoys of friendship in the new era are young students who cross mountains and seas to perceive each other's cultures with their hearts, teachers who help young people develop correct understanding, business professionals who create opportunities for cooperation between the two countries, researchers who tackle difficult problems together, veteran elders who pass on the stories of the Flying Tigers from generation to generation, and ordinary people who are willing to open their hearts to each other. Friendship between nations, in the final analysis, must be maintained and passed on through the sincere interactions of ordinary individuals. Crossing the barriers of geography, culture, and ideas, taking the initiative to approach and understand each other, and building mutual trust through achieving mutual benefits and win-win outcomes (互利共赢, hu li gong ying - "mutual, benefit, together, win") and mutual assistance — this is the precious inspiration the Flying Tiger spirit has left us, and it is also the spirit that the two peoples need to jointly carry forward and practice in the future.

More than 80 years ago, Flying Tiger members crossed the vast ocean and, amid the flames of war, built a bridge of friendship spanning mountains and seas between the American and Chinese peoples. Today, although the era we live in is different, the original aspiration of the two peoples to yearn for exchanges and look forward to win-win outcomes has never changed. We look forward to the United States and China opening more doors to dialogue, exchange, and cooperation — while facing up to differences and managing divergences, never forgetting the stirring years when the two peoples weathered storms together in times of difficulty (风雨同舟, feng yu tong zhou - "wind, rain, same, boat"), never forgetting the common interests and broad space for cooperation that both sides still share, carrying forward the extremely precious and valuable (弥足珍贵, mi zu zhen gui - "extremely, very, precious, valuable") friendship between the two peoples, and building a stronger bridge of friendship for the next generation.

(The author is the granddaughter of General Chennault, commander of the American Flying Tigers.)

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Opening the Right Path for Major-Country Relations, Writing a New Chapter in China-U.S. Ties

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) From September 23 to 25, 2026, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to the United States. At the conclusion of the visit, Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Minister of Foreign Affairs, briefed accompanying reporters on the visit.

Wang Yi said that in September, head-of-state diplomacy saw frequent and successive occurrences (高潮迭起, gaochao dieqi - "high tide, rise repeatedly") and was splendid and varied (精彩纷呈, jingcai fencheng - "wonderful, present in abundance"). After visiting Central Asia, the Middle East, and South Asia, President Xi Jinping traveled across the Pacific to the other shore, embarking on a visit to the United States that drew worldwide attention (举世瞩目, jushi zhumu - "world, eye, look at"). This was President Xi Jinping's first state visit to the United States in 11 years, realizing mutual visits by the two heads of state within half a year and creating a historic chapter in China-U.S. relations. The visit had a tight schedule and rich content. President Xi Jinping and President Trump had candid and in-depth exchanges of views on strategic and overarching issues concerning China-U.S. relations and the global situation in a friendly atmosphere of mutual respect. The U.S. side extended the highest protocol honors to President Xi Jinping. President Trump and his wife personally went to the airport to welcome him, the military band played the national anthems of both countries, a 21-gun salute was fired on site, and honor guards from all military services stood in neat formation to pay tribute, opening the visit with a grand prelude. The next day, President Trump held a grand welcome ceremony for President Xi Jinping at the White House. The two heads of state delivered important remarks and reviewed the honor guard and the flyover of aircraft above the White House side by side. That evening, President Trump and his wife decorated the East Room of the White House in Chinese red and held a grand state banquet in honor of President Xi Jinping and his wife, with U.S. government and congressional dignitaries and celebrities from all walks of life gathering together in one place (齐聚一堂, qiju yitang - "gather, together, one hall"). These meticulously designed protocol arrangements highlighted the U.S. side's full respect for President Xi Jinping and its high regard for China-U.S. relations.

Domestic and international media focused on this visit, with front-page headlines providing intensive coverage and analysis, generally viewing it as a historic visit of milestone significance. Amid a volatile and intertwined international situation, this visit carried forward the positive effects of the Beijing meeting between the two heads of state, led China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations toward new development, and released a positive signal of China and the United States moving toward each other, living in peace, and achieving mutually beneficial and win-win (互利共赢, huli gongying - "mutual benefit, win-win") outcomes, benefiting both countries and the world.

I. Expanding the New Positioning of China-U.S. Relations

Wang Yi said that head-of-state diplomacy is the anchor of China-U.S. relations. Since President Trump took office again, the two heads of state have met three times, spoken by phone five times, and exchanged correspondence on multiple occasions, maintaining close interactions and forming a mode of engagement characterized by mutual respect and sincerity, which has become the most valuable strategic asset of China-U.S. relations. At every critical juncture in the voyage of the great ship of China-U.S. relations, head-of-state diplomacy has provided navigation and direction.

During President Trump's visit to China in May this year, the two heads of state jointly confirmed the new positioning of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations, making clear the direction of striving toward cooperation as the mainstay, competition with limits, manageable differences, and a peaceful and expectable future. The new positioning both reflects the reality of China-U.S. relations making steady progress amidst stability (稳中有进, wen zhong you jin - "stable, within, have, progress") and embodies the two sides' expectations for continued improvement in China-U.S. relations, representing an important step toward the right way for the two countries to get along. Following the direction charted by the two heads of state, the two sides actively advanced dialogue and cooperation, properly handled differences and frictions, and achieved overall stability in China-U.S. relations.

The important political outcome of this visit was that President Xi Jinping and President Trump further expanded the connotation of the new positioning of China-U.S. relations, made clear the importance of respect, fairness, and reciprocity, and agreed to build a "China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relationship based on respect, fairness, and reciprocity," providing clearer strategic guidance for China and the United States to explore the way for major countries to get along. Respect means respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, respecting the social systems and development paths each has chosen, and respecting each other's core interests and major concerns. Fairness means conducting mutually beneficial cooperation, handling differences through consultation, refraining from zero-sum games of you-lose-I-win, and not pursuing unilateral absolute advantage. Reciprocity means equality of sovereignty between the two countries, with no hierarchy, no hegemonic or bullying behavior, resolving each other's concerns on a reciprocal basis, and developing cooperation in various fields in a balanced manner. President Xi Jinping pointed out that the two major countries, China and the United States, bear the historic responsibility of promoting human development and progress, and should demonstrate the responsibility of major countries, respond to the aspirations of the people and the trend of the times, and explore a new path for major countries to get along correctly. Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can fully coexist without conflict (并行不悖, bingxing bubei - "parallel, not, conflict"), reinforce each other, and benefit the world.

China and the United States have different national conditions, so it is normal to have differences, some of which are quite sharp, and many contradictions are also complex. But properly handling differences and contradictions while seeking common ground while reserving differences (求同存异, qiutong cunyi - "seek same, keep different") is an inherent requirement of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations. The two heads of state agreed to give full play to the coordinating role of political and diplomatic channels. The two militaries should maintain regular dialogue, and various departments including trade, finance, law enforcement, and people-to-people exchanges need to strengthen communication to build trust and clear up doubts (增信释疑, zengxin shiyi - "increase trust, explain doubt"), manage differences, and accumulate mutual trust. President Xi Jinping set forth China's principled position on the Taiwan question, emphasizing that China firmly safeguards national unity and territorial integrity, urging the U.S. side to adhere to the correct position of opposing "Taiwan independence," handle the Taiwan question with prudence, and remove interference for China-U.S. strategic cooperation and the development of bilateral relations.

Wang Yi said that, as President Xi Jinping pointed out, the "Thucydides Trap" can be overcome. China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations are not a slogan but should be actions of moving toward each other. As long as respect, fairness, and reciprocity are truly embodied, China and the United States will surely be able, through dialogue and consultation, to jointly find the right way for two countries with different civilizations, different systems, and different paths to coexist peacefully on this planet for the long term.

II. Opening New Space for China-U.S. Cooperation

Wang Yi said that as the world's two largest economies, China and the United States are objectively intertwined with each other, history teaches that cooperation benefits both while confrontation harms both, and mutual achievement and win-win cooperation are the only correct choice. China-U.S. cooperation bears on the well-being of the two peoples and also affects the world's political and economic landscape.

On the eve of the visit, the economic and trade teams of the two sides held a new round of consultations and reached a new joint arrangement, including establishing and advancing a trade council and an investment council, setting up an agricultural working group, reciprocal tariff reductions of "$30 billion," and extending the outcomes of the Kuala Lumpur economic and trade consultations, stabilizing bilateral economic and trade relations and market confidence, which is good news for the industries, the people, and even the global economy of both countries. China-U.S. economic and trade relations have gone through twists and turns, and today's stability has not come easily. Some forces on the U.S. side overstretch the concept of national security, politicize economic and trade issues at every turn, suppress Chinese enterprises in the United States, restrict Chinese investment in the United States, create market access barriers, and advocate "decoupling and severing supply chains," which serves no one's interests and will only shrink the intersection of interests between the two sides. President Xi Jinping pointed out that cooperation is a two-way street, and the stability of China-U.S. economic and trade relations requires both lengthening the list of cooperation and shortening the list of problems. The U.S. side should treat Chinese enterprises fairly, uphold the spirit of equality, respect, and mutual benefit, and find a way out of problems through dialogue and negotiation. The two sides should move toward each other, adhere to the orientation of mutually beneficial and win-win outcomes, and promote the sustained, stable, and sound development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations to better benefit the two peoples.

China-U.S. law enforcement cooperation has effectively safeguarded the lives and property of the two peoples and raised the "safety factor" of the development of bilateral relations. Fentanyl abuse has inflicted wounds on many American families that are difficult to heal. Although this problem was not caused by China, the Chinese side, proceeding from humanitarianism and the overall interests of China-U.S. relations, has always provided assistance to the U.S. side in addressing the fentanyl crisis with the greatest goodwill and the utmost effort. Since the Beijing meeting, the Chinese side has again added precursor chemicals to its controlled list and strengthened export supervision, and has jointly cracked multiple drug-related cases with the U.S. side, demonstrating China's sincerity. The two heads of state instructed the law enforcement departments of both sides to continue strengthening cooperation and jointly combat transnational crime.

Wang Yi said that those who act will always succeed (为者常成, wei zhe chang cheng - "doer, always, succeed"), and those who walk will always arrive. Facts have proven that China and the United States can accomplish a series of major and good things through cooperation. Every progress in China-U.S. relations has brought tangible benefits to the international community. All departments and at all levels on both sides should implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state with a nail-spirited approach, not failing to do good because it is small, and not doing evil because it is small, achieving mutual benefit and win-win outcomes in practical cooperation, achieving mutual success in healthy competition, and jointly creating a brighter future for China-U.S. relations.

III. Building New Bridges of China-U.S. Friendship

Wang Yi said that people-to-people connectivity provides solid strength and lasting momentum for the development of China-U.S. relations. As President Xi Jinping pointed out, the hope of China-U.S. relations lies in the people, the foundation lies in the grassroots, the future lies in the youth, and the vitality lies in the localities. "Ping-pong diplomacy" knocked open the door of exchanges between China and the United States that had been closed for many years, the "Guling bond" carries forward a friendship spanning a century, Iowa has witnessed the touching story of local cooperation, and the trickles of exchanges between the two peoples have converged into the source of living water nourishing the development of bilateral relations.

During this visit, President Xi Jinping repeatedly mentioned the high points of China-U.S. people-to-people friendship: the two peoples fought side by side in World War II, and Chinese soldiers and civilians rescued hundreds of American pilots at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. Chinese desertification fighter Yin Yuzhen and American friend Sai Kesai reunited in China after more than 20 years, and the saplings planted in the desert back then have grown into a forest. Sincere words and moving stories resonated strongly with people from all walks of life in both countries. President Trump also recounted in his remarks the historical experience of China and the United States becoming allies in World War II and the two peoples joining hands to win the war, saying that U.S.-China friendship spans thousands of miles and has lasted for over a hundred years, and expressing willingness to continue cultivating the friendship between the two countries to bring lasting prosperity and security to future generations. "The relationship between countries lies in the affinity between their peoples." The mutual understanding and affinity between peoples is the warmest and most powerful, enough to break down barriers, clear away noise, and let the vast Pacific connect the two sides.

To promote China-U.S. people-to-people and cultural exchanges, President Xi Jinping announced a series of new measures. On the basis of completing the goal of the "5-year, 50,000" initiative two and a half years ahead of schedule, President Xi Jinping announced that in the next five years, China will invite 100,000 American youths to China for exchange and study. From 50,000 to 100,000, what has grown is not just the number, but also the action of expanding youth exchanges and accumulating youthful strength for China-U.S. friendship. The most welcome good news for the American people is that giant pandas "Pingping" and "Fushuang" will soon settle at Zoo Atlanta. Giant pandas are envoys of friendship, deeply loved by the American people, and the panda bond between the two countries has spanned more than half a century. The arrival of "Pingping" and "Fushuang" will add another chapter of goodwill to China-U.S. friendship. "Rose diplomacy" was another highlight of this visit. When President Trump visited Zhongnanhai in May, he expressed great appreciation for Chinese roses. A few months later, Chinese roses, carrying the good wishes of the Chinese people, crossed the ocean to the White House in the United States, becoming a new symbol of friendship between the two countries.

It is worth noting that President Trump and his wife invited President Xi Jinping and his wife to jointly visit the U.S. National Archives, which was comparable to President Xi Jinping's invitation to President Trump to visit the Temple of Heaven in May, reflecting the two major countries' understanding and respect for each other's history and culture. China and the United States have different cultural traditions and social systems, but differences do not necessarily lead to confrontation; rather, they provide broad space for exchange and mutual learning.

The warm and gracious first-lady diplomacy injected soft power into this visit. Professor Peng Liyuan accompanied President Xi Jinping on his visit to the United States and, at the invitation of First Lady Melania Trump, jointly visited the National Museum of Asian Art, where they enjoyed American youth choir performances of Chinese songs such as "Jasmine Flower," experiencing the fusion of art and resonance of music, and bringing the hearts of the two peoples closer.

Wang Yi stated that only by connecting hearts can friendship last long. For China-U.S. relations to continue moving forward, both the "handshake" at the head-of-state level and the "hand-holding" of ordinary people are needed. Under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, we will continue to build bridges and pave roads for China-U.S. people-to-people and cultural exchanges, broaden channels and provide momentum for exchanges and cooperation in youth, education, culture, tourism, sports, and other fields, so that the tree of friendship between the two peoples can take deeper root and grow higher.

IV. Demonstrating New Responsibility as Major Countries

Wang Yi said that in the face of a volatile and intertwined international situation, the global significance of China-U.S. relations has become more prominent. Whether in addressing global challenges or cooling down hotspot issues, constructive interaction between China and the United States is indispensable. President Xi Jinping pointed out that although China-U.S. cooperation cannot solve all problems in the world, without cooperation between the two countries, many problems in the world would be difficult to solve. President Trump stated that the United States and China working together will lay a solid foundation for peace and prosperity in the world for decades to come. During this visit, the two heads of state had in-depth exchanges of views on major international and regional issues of common concern and agreed to strengthen coordination and make due contributions to world peace and development.

The continued tension in the Gulf and the Middle East has impacted global energy security, the geopolitical landscape, and the international order. As a responsible major country, China has always been a firm builder of peace in the Middle East, a promoter of stability, and a supporter of development. President Xi Jinping has successively put forward a series of initiatives and propositions dedicated to peace and stability in the Middle East, which have received broad recognition and positive response from the international community. During this visit, President Xi Jinping emphasized that the sovereignty and security of all countries should be respected, encouraged all parties to adhere to peaceful choices, supported the United States and Iran in returning to the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, resuming dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible, and ultimately reaching a comprehensive agreement including on the nuclear issue. International opinion highly praised China's objective and impartial position, believing that China focuses on the root causes of problems, emphasizes addressing both symptoms and root causes, respects the sovereignty of all countries, promotes dialogue and consultation, and plays a constructive role in cooling down the situation in the Middle East, expecting China to provide Chinese solutions and Chinese wisdom for the resolution of more hotspot issues.

The healthy, safe, and orderly development of artificial intelligence bears on the future of humanity and cannot be separated from China-U.S. collaboration. During this visit, President Xi Jinping had in-depth communication with President Trump on artificial intelligence, pointing out that both China and the United States are major AI countries with the capability and the responsibility to develop and manage AI well, ensuring that AI development always remains under human control and benefits the people. China and the United States should each leverage their strengths rather than guard against each other. The two heads of state agreed to make good use of the China-U.S. AI dialogue mechanism, exchange views on its risks and benefits, and jointly prevent AI from being abused and misused.

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of the Tokyo Trials. China and the United States are both permanent members of the UN Security Council, and upholding the postwar international order and preventing the revival of militarism is a common responsibility of both sides.

China and the United States will respectively host the APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting and the G20 Leaders' Summit in the fourth quarter of this year. The two heads of state confirmed mutual support, continuously injecting momentum into Asia-Pacific cooperation and global governance.

In conclusion, Wang Yi said that this historic visit enriched the connotation of China-U.S. constructive strategic stability relations, safeguarded the overall stability of China-U.S. relations, created and wrote a new chapter of the times in China-U.S. relations, and will have a profound impact on the cause of world peace and development. From "meeting in Beijing" to "meeting in Washington," President Xi Jinping has always led China-U.S. relations to proceed steadily and far with far-sighted strategic vision and a broad mind of benefiting the world. President Xi Jinping's calm and confident leadership demeanor left a deep impression on all sectors of the United States, inspired the enthusiasm of the American people to approach and understand China, and sowed seeds of friendship in American society. In just one month, President Xi Jinping made three overseas visits, radiating to neighboring countries, linking up with the Global South, and orchestrating the overall diplomatic landscape, making China's vision more popular, the role of major countries more prominent, and international influence further enhanced. We must continue to deeply understand and practice Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, and with a more vigorous spirit and firmer will to strive, make every effort to open up new prospects for major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and create a more favorable international environment and provide more solid strategic support for comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization.

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“Expecting U.S.-China Relations to Steady and Go Far”

By: 本报记者 李志伟

"The United States and China should join hands to address global challenges, achieve mutually beneficial outcomes (互利共赢, hu li gong ying - "mutual benefit, win-win"), and inject certainty into world peace and development." Kenneth Quinn, honorary chairman of the World Food Prize Foundation, said this in a recent interview with our reporter.

Quinn, now 84 years old, has long been committed to the cause of U.S.-China friendship. Quinn believes that the two sides have every condition to reshape their partnership and achieve stable development of bilateral relations.

Quinn stated that the Beijing meeting between the U.S. and Chinese heads of state jointly established a new positioning of building a constructive and strategically stable U.S.-China relationship, clarifying that the two countries will work together toward the direction of cooperation as the mainstay, competition with restraint, manageable differences, and a peaceful and promising future, providing strategic guidance for bringing bilateral relations back onto a stable and controllable track. The Washington meeting continued the positive effects of the Beijing meeting and expanded the connotation of the new positioning of U.S.-China relations. "Insightful figures in the U.S. political and business communities are increasingly recognizing that extreme practices such as frequent and drastic policy adjustments and tariff games seriously harm the common interests of both sides. We look forward to the U.S.-China relationship achieving long-term steady development (行稳致远, xing wen zhi yuan - "walk steadily, reach far")." Quinn suggested that the two sides rely on normalized dialogue mechanisms to explore safe and pragmatic cooperation paths in areas such as artificial intelligence, frontier technology, and talent cultivation, managing differences and accumulating mutual trust through sound interaction.

In Quinn's view, cooperation in the agricultural sector is one of the important entry points for building a constructive and strategically stable U.S.-China relationship. Food security is a major challenge facing humanity, and peace and stability are the fundamental prerequisite for addressing this challenge. He stated that the stability of major-power relations can create a favorable environment for global development. As two major powers, the United States and China should all the more jointly address security challenges and work together to safeguard global peace and stability.

People-to-people connectivity (民心相通, min xin xiang tong - "people's hearts, connect together") provides solid strength and lasting momentum for the development of U.S.-China relations. Quinn stated that the two countries should comprehensively expand multi-level and two-way exchanges, promote normalized mutual visits among figures from the business community, the education sector, and local provincial and municipal officials, while simultaneously deepening cooperation in people-to-people and cultural fields such as sports, arts, and media. Face-to-face exchanges help break down cognitive barriers and dispel prejudice and misunderstanding, allowing the people of both countries to see the shared values and development aspirations between them.

Quinn stated that young people are the future and hope of U.S.-China relations, and exchanges among young people can enable each side to understand the other's country truly and comprehensively, thereby passing on, maintaining, and developing U.S.-China friendship. Only by continuously deepening exchanges and mutual learning across various fields and adhering to cooperation rather than confrontation can the United States and China continuously enhance the well-being of their peoples and promote world peace, stability, and prosperity.

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Han Zheng Meets with UN Secretary-General António Guterres

(People's Daily, United Nations, September 26) (Reporter Li Zhiwei) On September 25 local time, Vice President Han Zheng met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, attended the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative hosted by China, and read out and delivered remarks on President Xi Jinping's congratulatory letter.

When meeting with Guterres, Han Zheng stated that the current international situation is one in which changes and chaos are intertwined (变乱交织, bian luan jiao zhi - "change, chaos, interweave"), and the international system centered on the United Nations faces multiple challenges. This year marks the 55th anniversary of the restoration of the People's Republic of China's lawful seat in the United Nations. Over the past 55 years, China has always upheld true multilateralism and supported the United Nations in playing a central role in international affairs. Upholding multilateralism and reforming and improving the global governance system are the common aspirations of the international community at present. Looking ahead, China will continue to play its role as a responsible major country, actively align its own concepts and initiatives with the UN agenda, and provide new opportunities for world development through new achievements in Chinese modernization.

Guterres thanked China for its firm and strong support for the cause of the United Nations, stating that China has played a key role in advancing important UN agendas and made significant contributions to global development. The United Nations is willing to further deepen cooperation with China to safeguard the common interests of the international community.

At the High-Level Dialogue on the Fifth Anniversary of the Global Development Initiative, Han Zheng stated that President Xi Jinping sent a special congratulatory letter, fully reflecting the high importance attached to this event. Over the past five years, under the personal promotion of President Xi Jinping, the Global Development Initiative has been transformed from China's conceptual proposition into a common international action, contributing Chinese solutions and Chinese strength to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. China is willing to work hand in hand with all parties to make the initiative more profound and practical, so that the fruits of development benefit the people of all countries and make greater contributions to building a community with a shared future for mankind.

UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Maldivian Vice President Hussain Mohamed Latheef, and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith delivered remarks, with ministerial-level officials from more than 30 countries in attendance. More than 300 representatives from over 60 countries and more than 20 international organizations participated in the meeting. All parties highly commended the important role the Global Development Initiative has played over the past five years in assisting countries' sustainable development and advancing the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, stating that the initiative provides strong momentum for global development, has been translated into tangible results in areas such as poverty reduction, food security, green development, and industrialization, benefiting the vast number of developing countries, and has made important contributions to building consensus on development and deepening international cooperation. They expressed their willingness to continue to firmly support the initiative, strengthen solidarity and coordination, and work together to create a more inclusive, more sustainable, and more resilient future.

Han Zheng also met with Kaha Imnadze, President of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, stating that China supports making sustainable development a priority of this session's work and responding to the expectations of the world's people with inclusive development outcomes.

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Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Answers Questions on Artificial Intelligence

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) The Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson answered questions from reporters on artificial intelligence on September 26.

A reporter asked: We have noted that when the U.S. side introduced the outcomes of this visit, it used "superintelligence" instead of "artificial intelligence." What is China's comment on this?

The spokesperson stated that during the meeting between the Chinese and U.S. heads of state, the two sides conducted in-depth discussions on the issue of artificial intelligence. Regarding the terminology of artificial intelligence, China values the position of the U.S. side and also respects its choice of wording. Artificial intelligence technology is continuously developing, and all parties may, in light of the latest developments, strengthen exchanges, conduct deeper discussions, and seek common ground.

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Chinese Navy Hospital Ship "Auspicious Ark" Arrives in Senegal

(Xinhua News Agency, Dakar, September 25) (Reporter Qi Qi) On the morning of the 25th local time, the Chinese Navy hospital ship "Auspicious Ark" (Jixiang Fangzhou), carrying out the "Harmonious Mission—2026" task, arrived in Dakar, the capital of Senegal, beginning a friendly visit and providing medical services. This is the first visit by a Chinese Navy hospital ship to Senegal.

During the visit, the "Auspicious Ark" hospital ship will use its main platform to provide medical services and will dispatch medical training teams to local hospitals for visits and exchanges. At the same time, the task force will organize a deck reception, visit and extend condolences to a local orphanage, and hold a friendly basketball match with Senegalese military personnel.

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Strictly Investigate and Punish Crimes Endangering Food Safety in Accordance with the Law, Safeguarding the People's "Safety on the Tip of the Tongue"

(Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, September 26) Chen Wenqing, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, chaired a special meeting on the 24th, emphasizing the need to earnestly study and implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions and directives on food safety work, and to strictly investigate and punish crimes endangering food safety in accordance with the law, safeguarding the people's "safety on the tip of the tongue."

Chen Wenqing pointed out that the current food safety situation in China continues to improve while remaining stable (稳中向好, wen zhong xiang hao - "stable, middle, towards, good"), but incidents that breach the bottom line of food safety still occur from time to time. Political and legal organs must adhere to a people-centered approach, treat the safeguarding of food safety as a major political task, strengthen coordination and cooperation with relevant departments, resolve prominent food safety issues through strict law enforcement, and use the rule of law to protect the people's life safety and physical health.

Chen Wenqing emphasized that strict law enforcement must be upheld, focusing on key areas such as meat products, campus food, health food, vegetables and fruits, and focusing on key links such as production and processing, online sales, terminal catering, and food imports, punishing crimes endangering food safety across the entire chain. It is necessary to strengthen the connection between administrative and criminal enforcement, actively communicate with market regulation, agriculture and rural affairs, and other departments, improve the two-way connection mechanism between administrative punishment and criminal punishment, establish an information sharing platform, and strengthen the law-based governance of food safety. It is necessary to promote comprehensive rectification, consolidate the primary responsibility of all parties, improve whole-chain supervision of food safety, and strictly prevent, strictly manage, and strictly control food safety risks. It is necessary to improve laws and regulations, accelerate the comprehensive revision of the Food Safety Law, clarify production standards, licensing use, and responsibility definition regulations for new business forms such as fresh e-commerce, food delivery, and livestream sales, and firmly hold the bottom line of food safety.

Wang Xiaohong, Zhang Jun, and Ying Yong attended the meeting.

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How the Intelligent Economy Is Forging China’s New Development Strengths

By: 金 轩

A domestically developed large model is released, and global developers rush to use it; on urban roads, intelligent vehicles speed forward; in smart workshops, robotic arms move up and down rapidly; deep in mines, unmanned mining trucks shuttle back and forth... Artificial intelligence is influencing economic and social development with unprecedented speed, breadth, and depth, accelerating its transformation from a "technological variable" into an "economic increment." A series of economic activities centered on intelligent production, circulation, and application are rapidly shaping a new form of intelligent economy with artificial intelligence as the core driving force.

The intelligent economy is a strategic variable for seizing the initiative in future development

From the perspective of global competition, developing the intelligent economy is an urgent need to seize the commanding heights of global artificial intelligence development. "Those who perceive trends are wise; those who ride trends prevail." Looking at modern and contemporary world history, every industrial revolution has given birth to new economic forms, profoundly affecting the rise and fall of great powers. At present, artificial intelligence technology is iterating at an accelerated pace, profoundly affecting the adjustment of international power dynamics. Major economies are intensively making strategic deployments, increasing investment in technological research and development and capital. Global competition in artificial intelligence has entered a white-hot stage. Whoever first cultivates a new form of intelligent economy representing the future direction will grasp more strategic initiative in the fierce competition.

From the perspective of domestic practice, developing the intelligent economy is an urgent need to promote high-quality development. In the transition to the stage of high-quality development, the supporting conditions and basic trends for China's long-term economic improvement remain unchanged. At the same time, China faces multiple challenges such as economic transformation, demographic changes, and increasing employment pressure. The marginal benefits of the traditional development model are continuously diminishing, and there is an urgent need to seize the historic opportunities brought by artificial intelligence development. The intelligent economy enhances total factor productivity through the combined optimization of data, computing power, and algorithms, profoundly transforming the way factors are allocated. It can not only help traditional industries undergo transformation and upgrading, improve quality and increase efficiency, but also open up new tracks for industrial development. Developing the intelligent economy is both a "winning move" for addressing current challenges and a "preemptive move" for shaping long-term advantages.

The intelligent economy is becoming an important engine for comprehensively reshaping new development advantages

In recent years, the scale of China's intelligent economy has expanded rapidly, quality has leaped significantly, and structure has continued to optimize. The intelligent economy is connected on one end to intelligent industrialization—through the supply of artificial intelligence technology and industrial transformation, forming a continuously growing core artificial intelligence industry; and on the other end to industrial intelligence—through the application and implementation of "artificial intelligence +," empowering the transformation and upgrading of the real economy.

Intelligent industrialization builds a solid technological foundation for emerging industries to develop steadily and far. The intelligent economy is a building; algorithms, computing power, data, and energy are its foundation. Only when the foundation of artificial intelligence is laid firmly can the edifice of the intelligent economy stand tall. Domestic large model technologies and products are in a state of intense competition where everyone is striving to catch up (你追我赶, ni zhui wo gan - "you, chase; I, rush"), with self-developed foundational models ranking among the world's leading positions, leading the construction of the global open-source ecosystem for artificial intelligence, and domestic open-source model downloads ranking first in the world. China's total intelligent computing power ranks second globally, with ten-thousand-card intelligent computing clusters accelerating large-scale implementation. The data resource system continues to improve, with 120,000 high-quality datasets already built. Energy infrastructure supply is sufficient, with power generation accounting for one-third of the global total, building the world's largest and fastest-developing renewable energy system. The coordination of computing and electricity is being deeply advanced, with a steady supply of green electricity becoming an important advantage for China's artificial intelligence development. The artificial intelligence industry has maintained a high growth rate of over 20% for many consecutive years, forming a complete industrial system covering the factor foundation layer, technology model layer, and industry application layer.

Industrial intelligence reshapes the complete competitive advantages of the traditional industrial system. The value of the intelligent economy lies not only in "establishing the new" but also in "transforming the old." While artificial intelligence is being popularized first in fields such as the internet, it is accelerating its comprehensive integration into important production scenarios of traditional industries. Intelligent transformation has given a large number of "dormant" production capacities the ability to undertake large-scale, high-efficiency overseas customized orders; artificial intelligence has shortened power grid dispatch from the hour level to the minute level, helping solve the consumption challenge after large-scale grid connection of new energy; "unmanned terminals" allow 10,000-ton giant ships to begin operations immediately upon docking and cargo to flow immediately upon arrival, engraving "China efficiency" into key global shipping hubs. The effectiveness of empowerment benefits both from the accessibility and affordability of new technologies and from the feedback effect of application scenarios. On the one hand, intelligent products and services are accelerating their penetration in an inclusive and accessible manner, allowing industries regardless of new or old and enterprises regardless of size to enjoy the dividends of artificial intelligence development through being "able to use, able to afford, and able to use well." On the other hand, extensive and deep empowerment applications are driving continuous breakthroughs in key core technologies such as artificial intelligence, forming a virtuous cycle of innovation driving application and application promoting innovation.

China's intelligent economy has enormous development potential

The history of technological evolution shows that every leap in technological capability opens up new incremental space.

From the perspective of intelligent industrialization potential, intelligent agents are accelerating their transition from "generating content" to "executing tasks," and humanoid robots are accelerating their transition from "being able to dance" to "being able to work." The combination of China's huge market demand in the economy with rich application scenarios, strong production capacity, and diverse business models will give rise to more industrial applications and cultivate more world-class enterprises. By the end of the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of artificial intelligence-related industries is expected to reach more than 10 trillion yuan.

From the perspective of industrial intelligence potential, intelligent upgrading contains room for several-fold growth. The overall scale of China's manufacturing industry has ranked first in the world for 16 consecutive years. Every one percentage point increase in the penetration rate of artificial intelligence applications in manufacturing means that thousands of industrial enterprises above designated size enter the ranks of intelligent enterprises, and intelligent vehicles, smart homes, and other areas will release new growth space. According to the Opinions of the State Council on Deeply Implementing the "Artificial Intelligence +" Action, by 2030, artificial intelligence will comprehensively empower high-quality development in China, with the penetration rate of applications such as new-generation intelligent terminals and intelligent agents exceeding 90%, and the intelligent economy becoming an important growth pole for China's economic development.

During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the development of the intelligent economy requires grasping key directions

The outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan" deploys the comprehensive implementation of the "Artificial Intelligence +" action, requiring "seizing the commanding heights of artificial intelligence industrial applications and comprehensively empowering all industries and sectors." During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, developing the intelligent economy should adhere to the combination of points, lines, and surfaces, integrally strengthening technology, factors, and scenario construction, and continuously strengthening, optimizing, and expanding the intelligent economy.

Make precise efforts at the point level, focus on key technologies, leverage the advantages of the new nationwide system for mobilizing resources, and tackle key core technologies. Aim at the world's scientific and technological frontiers to strengthen systematic layout, accelerate breakthroughs in basic theories and core technologies of artificial intelligence, develop high-performance artificial intelligence chips and highly available basic software stacks, accelerate exploration and innovation in basic model architectures, deepen research on key algorithms such as explainability and decision-making, and promote the production of more landmark original achievements. Focus on important strategic fields and weak links in the industrial and supply chains, adopt extraordinary measures, and promote decisive breakthroughs in key core technologies in key fields across the entire chain.

Connect and smooth the line level, focus on factor coordination, and establish and improve a factor system compatible with the intelligent economy. Coordinate the advancement of computing power facility construction, model algorithm development, and high-quality data resource supply. Accelerate the construction of national hub computing power facility clusters, support qualified regions in appropriately developing computing power according to low-latency scenario needs, and strengthen the supply of high-performance, high-quality intelligent computing resources. Strengthen collaborative innovation in "model, chip, data, cloud, and application," encourage technological innovation in multimodal, intelligent agents, embodied intelligence, and swarm intelligence, and promote the synchronized development of general large models and industry-specific models. Build a national data resource system, promote the development and opening of enterprise data and industry data, accelerate the construction of artificial intelligence corpora, and build high-quality datasets for fields such as energy, transportation, and manufacturing.

Implement applications at the surface level, focus on ubiquitous scenarios, and deepen the advantages of the super-large market to promote scenario empowerment. Around fields such as science and technology, industrial development, consumption upgrading, people's livelihood and well-being, governance capacity, and global cooperation, deepen and expand the "Artificial Intelligence +" action. Build national artificial intelligence application pilot and testing bases, promote the intelligent development of all factors in industry, accelerate the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of agriculture, innovate new models for service industry development, and promote the deep integration of the digital economy and the real economy. Fully leverage the role of digital and intelligent technologies and data factors in enriching people's lives and improving people's livelihood and well-being, and expand integrated applications in fields such as education, healthcare, elderly care, and culture and tourism.

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Nation's cumulative installed power generation capacity up 11.1% year on year

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) (Reporter Wang Yunshan) The reporter learned from the National Energy Administration: As of the end of August, the nation's cumulative installed power generation capacity reached 4.103 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%. Among this, installed solar power generation capacity reached 1.299 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 16.3%; installed wind power capacity reached 693 million kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%.

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Photo Report

On September 26, the three-day 31st China Hardware Fair opened in Yongkang, Zhejiang. A total of 1,612 enterprises are participating in this year's fair, which covers an exhibition area of 89,000 square meters and displays products spanning seven major categories, including power tools, hand tools, daily hardware and hardware appliances. The photo shows business visitors negotiating deals at an exhibition booth.

Photo by Hu Xiaofei (Image China)

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Skills Light Up the Arena, Craftsmanship Lifts the Future (Inside the WorldSkills Competition)

By: 本报记者 沈文敏

In front of the aviation simulation cabin, audience members gripped the control yoke and concentrated intently on trying it out; beside the quantum concept machine cabinet, visitors leaned in to observe a demonstration of optical tweezers capturing atoms; at the digital training console, young people adjusted industrial control modules with their hands... At the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), during the 48th WorldSkills Competition, the WorldSkills Expo was in full swing, with booth after booth transforming the hard-core skills of workshops and laboratories into immersive experiences that could be seen, touched, and tried firsthand, allowing audiences to truly understand the value of skills.

At China Eastern Airlines' booth of more than 300 square meters, the "Skills Build Careers" painted aircraft model drew attention. In the maintenance skills area, China Eastern Airlines maintenance engineer Qiu Mengying deftly wrapped safety wire with her fingertips, demonstrating the installation of safety wiring on aircraft fasteners. "Aircraft vibration during flight is intense, so this process cannot afford the slightest carelessness." Qiu Mengying explained while demonstrating. Beside her, WorldSkills-winning flight attendant Chen Yifan mixed beverages, with audience members queuing up to taste and appreciate the refinement of cabin service. The on-site stamp-collecting activity drew a lively crowd, with visitors entering the simulated cockpit to experience flying and taking on cargo and mail security screening challenges. At an altitude of 10,000 meters, flights connected live with the booth via ground-to-air WiFi, sending Mid-Autumn Festival greetings from the clouds, vividly showcasing the achievements of civil aviation digital and intelligent innovation.

The story of precision construction craftsmanship was told at the Oriental Yuhong booth. Oriental Yuhong brought a complete set of building waterproofing precision engineering solutions. Staff explained that Chinese enterprises going global are no longer simply exporting goods, but rather having products, technology, and talent go global simultaneously. The company has established localized production bases in Saudi Arabia and Brazil, cumulatively cultivated 910,000 professional craftsmen, and sent employees to overseas engineering projects, bringing Chinese construction standards to all parts of the world and advancing China's building materials from product going global to value going global.

As the only quantum computing enterprise exhibiting at the Expo, Zhongqi Wuliang's "Qinghe No. 1" neutral atom quantum computer concept machine sat quietly on display. "We use lasers to form optical tweezers, 'capturing' individual atoms in light to perform computations." Zhongqi Wuliang founder Lü Xudong explained that developing this equipment with a domestic localization rate exceeding 90 percent was inseparable from the collaborative efforts of highly skilled talent in mechanical and electrical engineering, optoelectronics, software, and other fields. The quantum industry needs a large number of craftsmen with systems engineering capabilities to lay a solid foundation for the next generation of autonomous computing power.

Siemens' three booths were equally lively. The company provided full-stack technical support for eight competition events, with industrial AI (artificial intelligence) agents and CNC systems making a concentrated appearance. The booth offered a technology classroom for young people, where audience members practiced wiring and simple programming by hand. Xiao Song, Chairman of Siemens China, stated that the company will deepen industry-education integration and continue cultivating digital skills talent suited to intelligent manufacturing.

From the millimeter-level precision of civil aviation maintenance to the global reach of building materials craftsmen; from frontier exploration in quantum engineering to the training stage of intelligent manufacturing — at the Expo, skills were no longer tedious procedures but the spark of innovation. Inside and outside the competition arena, young craftsmen, armed with a specialized skill or area of expertise, are heading toward a broad and promising future.

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Keep polishing the national calling card of "safety"

By: 本报记者 亓玉昆

National prosperity and the people's peace and security are the most fundamental and universal aspiration of the people, and also an important goal for which our Party strives.

General Secretary Xi Jinping is constantly bearing in mind (念兹在兹, nian zi zai zi - "think, this, stay, this") the building of a Safe China.

"Building a Safe China at a higher level bears on the flourishing of our cause, bears on the people's wonderful life, and bears on the country's long-term social stability and peace."

"Adapting to the developments and changes in the situation and tasks, the building of a Safe China can only be strengthened, and must not be weakened."

"We must unswervingly and steadfastly (坚定不移, jian ding bu yi - "firm, steady, not, move") implement the holistic approach to national security, and continue to exert sustained effort on making the country safer, society more orderly, governance more effective, and the people more satisfied, so as to push the building of a Safe China to a higher level."

On the new journey of the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has continuously improved the national security leadership system and the systems of rule of law, strategy, policy, and risk prevention and control, improved the social governance system, strengthened the overall prevention and control of public security, made every effort to raise the level of public safety governance, resolutely safeguarded national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and successfully continued to write a new chapter in the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability. "Safety" has already become a shining national calling card of China.

National security has been comprehensively strengthened

Strengthening the national security system and capacity building, safeguarding national economic security, raising the level of public safety governance... Opening the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, a series of important deployments in the field of national security attract attention.

On April 15, 2014, at the first meeting of the Central National Security Commission, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively put forward the holistic approach to national security, providing fundamental guidance and a guide to action for doing a good job in national security work in the new era.

Under the scientific guidance of the holistic approach to national security, we have blazed a path of national security with Chinese characteristics, national security has been comprehensively strengthened, and we have withstood the tests of risks and challenges from the political, economic, ideological, and natural spheres.

Establishing the Central National Security Commission, improving the national security leadership system, establishing and improving the working systems and mechanisms for social governance and for maintaining political security and social stability... A series of measures have formed an overall joint force for building a Safe China, effectively enhanced national security capabilities, and consolidated the cornerstone of the country's long-term social stability and peace.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The building of a Safe China is for the people, and also relies on the people."

Recently, ShanghaiTech University organized more than 500 new students to go to the Shanghai National Security Education Hall to carry out the themed practical activity "National Security, Youth Guarding." Through forms such as realistic scenario simulation and interactive experiences, the students systematically studied the core essence of the holistic approach to national security and gained an in-depth understanding of typical cases in fields such as science and technology security and cybersecurity.

"With the National Security Law as the guide, the building of the rule of law in China's national security has pressed the 'accelerator button,' successively promulgating or revising more than 30 laws related to national security, more than 60 supporting administrative regulations, and nearly 500 local regulations, further improving the national security legal system." During the activity, the docent, combining the achievements of national security in the new era, explained profound matters in a simple, easy-to-understand way (深入浅出, shen ru qian chu - "deep, enter, shallow, go out") the national security laws and regulations.

With the extensive publicity of the holistic approach to national security and the in-depth development of national security education for all the people, "national security is everyone's responsibility" has become the ideological consensus and conscious action of the broad masses of the people.

Fishermen who salvage foreign espionage devices and proactively report them, enterprise employees who discover suspicious clues and promptly reflect them, college students who identify cyber espionage traps and actively report them... The "glimmers of light" from hundreds of millions of people converge into a mighty force for guarding the family and the country, consolidating the political, social, and popular foundations for safeguarding national security.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "further establish the concept that development is the hard truth, and security is also the hard truth."

During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's food security has been strongly guaranteed, with annual grain output remaining steadily above 1.3 trillion jin, and the rice bowls of more than 1.4 billion Chinese people are held more firmly;

The foundation for energy supply guarantee is solid, having built the world's most complete and largest energy system in terms of categories and scale;

Proactively preventing and defusing risks in key areas such as finance involving the public, real estate, and labor relations, and holding the bottom line of not having systemic risks;

Firmly grasping the fundamental requirement of coordinating development and security, running security through the entire process and all aspects of development, the building of a Safe China has been solidly advanced, safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern, and propelling the giant ship of China braving the waves and storms (劈波斩浪, pi bo zhan lang - "split, waves, chop, waves") and moving steadily to achieve long-term success (行稳致远, xing wen zhi yuan - "walk, steady, reach, far").

"Chinese-style sense of security" widely praised

A country prospers through security, and the people are happy through safety.

"Enabling the people to enjoy a safe and stable living and working environment is an important goal of China's governance." General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed this out on international occasions.

China is one of the safest countries in the world, with one of the lowest crime rates and one of the lowest homicide rates.

The data is evidence. In 2025, the national public sense of security was 98.23%, remaining above 98% for 6 consecutive years; in 2025, the number of criminal case filings decreased by 12.8% year-on-year, the lowest since the beginning of this century, and in the first half of 2026, it decreased by another 16.5% year-on-year; in 2025, the number of homicide cases decreased by 8.7% year-on-year, and in the first half of 2026, it decreased by another 11.4% year-on-year.

"Dare to go out late at night," "nothing gets stolen even when unattended," "strangers are very warm-hearted"... This "Chinese-style sense of security" can also be corroborated by the praise of foreign tourists.

In recent years, China's inbound tourism has continued to heat up. Data released by the National Immigration Administration shows that in the first half of 2026, the number of inbound foreigners reached 22.914 million, an increase of 20.4% year-on-year.

The rising heat of inbound tourism is inseparable from China's "reassurance visible everywhere." China's good public security environment has won widespread praise among overseas tourists, providing strong support for the sustained development of inbound tourism.

Mafia-like and evil forces are a cancer on society. In recent years, all localities have maintained a high-pressure posture of cracking down on problems as soon as they emerge (露头就打, lu tou jiu da - "show, head, then, hit") against mafia-like and evil crimes, the public security situation has continued to improve, the grassroots foundation has been comprehensively consolidated, and the development environment has been continuously optimized.

A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2025, the people's satisfaction with the fight against mafia-like and evil forces was 94.55%, remaining at a high level above 92% for 7 consecutive years.

With the rapid development of informatization, traditional mafia-like and evil crimes and internet crimes are intertwined, and some new types of mafia-like and evil crimes seriously endanger the personal and property safety of the people.

General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized resolutely cracking down on mafia-like and evil forces and their "protective umbrellas," and never allowing them to harm the people again.

Facing the new situation and new challenges, in July this year, a one-year special campaign to deepen the fight against mafia-like and evil forces was launched across the country.

The people's courts acted swiftly, directing the edge of the crackdown at the various mafia-like and evil force crimes and violations that the people reflect most strongly and detest most deeply.

At the end of August, the People's Court of Jizhou District, Tianjin, and some other courts across the country publicly pronounced first-instance judgments on 12 mafia-like and evil crime cases, sentencing 12 mafia-like and evil criminal organizations and 163 defendants to penalties ranging from life imprisonment to fixed-term imprisonment of 10 months in accordance with the law.

The cases publicly pronounced in this round highlighted the strict legal crackdown on mafia-like and evil criminal organizations that use network platforms and "soft violence" means to organically carry out illegal lending, illegal debt collection, labor fraud, and other crimes, the strict legal punishment of mafia-like and evil forces such as "market bullies" and "street bullies," and the strict legal punishment of mafia-like and evil criminal organizations that manipulate minors to commit crimes and infringe upon the rights and interests of minors, effectively maintaining social stability and the people's peace.

"Don't blindly believe in the free physical examinations of so-called 'experts,' don't pay high treatment fees, and be vigilant against fraud targeting the elderly!" Recently, Beijing police smashed a fraud gang specifically targeting the elderly, and summarized typical cases, distilled anti-fraud guidelines, and carried out concentrated publicity.

In recent years, the means of telecommunications and network fraud crimes have been constantly renewed, and fraud "scripts" have taken on a dazzling variety of forms. The Ministry of Public Security has deployed public security organs nationwide to take the initiative, continuously carry out a series of special operations, strictly crack down on telecommunications and network fraud crimes, and effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the people.

According to statistics, in 2025, public security organs solved a total of 258,000 telecommunications and network fraud cases; in the first half of this year, the number of filed fraud crime cases decreased by 15.6% year-on-year, and 2.926 million people were met with and dissuaded; since October 2025, the number of fraud cases has decreased year-on-year for 11 consecutive months.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that safety is the primary need of the people after they have solved the problem of food and clothing, is an extremely important livelihood issue, and is also the most basic development environment.

One thunderous operation after another, one practical measure after another, have continuously enhanced the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security.

The foundation of social governance is more solid

If the grassroots are strong, the country is strong; if the grassroots are secure, the world is secure.

The "Fengqiao model" is a valuable experience in China's grassroots governance, is an indigenous Chinese wisdom and Eastern experience, and has been continuously enriched and developed in the new era.

In September 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Fengqiao Town, Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, the birthplace of the "Fengqiao model," visited the Fengqiao Model Exhibition Hall, learned about the vivid practice of the "Fengqiao model" in the new era, and emphasized that "the 'Fengqiao model' of the new era must be upheld and developed well."

To build a Safe China at a higher level, it is necessary to strengthen the overall prevention and control of public security.

In recent years, all localities have upheld and developed the "Fengqiao model" of the new era, made the prevention and resolution of contradictions and disputes a work priority, vigorously promoted the standardized construction of comprehensive governance centers, and have so far achieved full coverage with the establishment of 2,849 county-level comprehensive governance centers and 38,500 township-level comprehensive governance centers.

Family troubles, property disputes, industry contradictions... In 2025, comprehensive governance centers successfully resolved 9.746 million contradictions and disputes, and in the first half of 2026, county-level comprehensive governance centers across the country accepted 7.679 million contradictions and disputes, with their role in absorbing and resolving contradictions and disputes becoming increasingly prominent, and "go to the comprehensive governance center when there is a problem" gradually becoming a consensus.

Small matters do not leave the village, major matters do not leave the township, and contradictions are not passed upward.

In Annan Township, Qingyuan County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, due to a dispute over homestead boundaries, villagers Zhang Mou and Li Mou had harbored grudges for many years, with constant friction, and nearly came to blows. After learning of the situation, the local comprehensive governance center, linking up with mediation forces such as veteran Party member Wu Bangguang and Anxi Police Station officer Wu Sihua, resolved to chew on this "hard bone."

After spending a great deal of time clarifying the ins and outs and the focus of the dispute, with a square table and a few chairs, they carried out mediation, within the bounds of the law while also taking into account local customs and human feelings, gradually loosening the knots in the hearts of the two families. In only 4 days, the grudge that had lasted more than 40 years was resolved, and the two families shook hands and made peace.

In October 2024, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Tongcheng City, Anhui Province for an inspection, learned about the history of the Six-Foot Lane and its inheritance, and emphasized that "contradictions among the people must be resolved through mediation."

As the "first line of defense" for maintaining social stability, people's mediation is a vivid practice of the "Fengqiao model" in the new era and plays a fundamental role in the diversified mechanism for resolving contradictions and disputes.

"Thank you so much! Without going to court, we were able to get the compensation and wages back!" In the mediation room of the Jiahu Judicial Office of the Longnan City Judicial Bureau in Jiangxi Province, migrant worker Yang Mou held the mediator's hand, extremely excited.

A dispute arising from an injury during the construction of high-standard farmland was satisfactorily resolved through the efforts of the mediators, effectively preventing further intensification of the contradiction.

Nowadays, judicial administrative organs continue to deepen the work pattern based on people's mediation with the linkage and coordination of various types of mediation, and solidly carry out the source prevention, investigation and early warning, and mediation and resolution of contradictions and disputes.

At present, there are 697,000 people's mediation committees and 3.102 million people's mediators nationwide, basically forming a mediation organization network covering urban and rural communities and key areas and units.

While cracking down on and punishing crimes in accordance with the law and holding the bottom line of safety and stability, judicial organs also pay attention to the source governance of cases.

In response to loopholes in fields such as public security and medical and health care, the Intermediate People's Court of Zhongwei City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, issued judicial suggestions to relevant departments, promoting the investigation and rectification of safety hazards around the people;

In response to problems such as loopholes in food safety supervision, procuratorial organs in places such as Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, issued suggestions, promoting market supervision departments to improve mechanisms and safeguard the people's "safety on the tip of the tongue"...

Through the high-quality and efficient issuance of judicial suggestions and procuratorial suggestions, judicial organs explore deep-level social governance problems from individual cases and contribute the strength of the rule of law to the building of a Safe China.

A Safe China is universally recognized; China's governance has far-reaching influence.

Striving forward in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, striving to build a Safe China at a higher level will surely create a safer and more stable social environment for Chinese modernization. A beautiful picture of political stability, social order, and the people's peace is unfolding gradually and steadily (徐徐铺展, xu xu pu zhan - "slowly, slowly, spread, unfold") across the land of China.

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China's Urban Rail Transit Total Operating Mileage Approaches 11,700 Kilometers

(People's Daily, Beijing, September 26) (Reporter Han Xin) The recently released "China Sustainable Transport Development Report 2025" shows that in 2025, the total operating mileage of China's urban rail transit will approach 11,700 kilometers, the operating mileage of intercity (metropolitan-area) railways will exceed 12,000 kilometers, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone will have built modern comprehensive three-dimensional transport networks that lead the country.

Rapid transit service modes have become the mainstream for cross-regional travel. The proportion of the national population enjoying one-hour rapid transit services exceeds 90 percent; railways carried 4.6 billion passenger trips throughout the year, of which about 80 percent were handled by high-speed rail; the aviation passenger population has exceeded 500 million, making China the world's largest aviation passenger country; self-driving trips on expressways account for more than 70 percent of cross-regional personnel flows.

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Doing a Good Job on the "Sea" and Tapping the Potential of "Tourism" (Vitality China Research Trip)

By: 本报记者 刘晓宇 张艺开 施 钰

The tides surge in the East China Sea, and the coastline of Fujian, the land of eight Min, is turning "blue seas and silver beaches" into "golden mountains and silver mountains."

During his work in Fujian, Comrade Xi Jinping successively proposed building a "Maritime Fuzhou" and a "Maritime Fujian." In October 2024, during his inspection tour in Fujian, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Promote Fuzhou and Xiamen to accelerate the construction of national marine economy demonstration zones, and make the marine economy bigger and stronger."

Since the beginning of this year, Fujian has facilitated a cumulative total of 117 key cultural tourism projects reaching cooperation intentions, with a total investment of 83.226 billion yuan, covering new business formats, new models, and new scenarios such as scenic area foundation strengthening and renewal, coastal leisure, and digital cultural tourism. In 2025, the province received 718 million tourist visits, with total tourism spending of 940.65 billion yuan, representing year-on-year growth of 10.6% and 12.6%, respectively.

Behind these sets of data lies the "transformation" of a sea. From the ticket economy of "digging sand and treading water" to the full-chain consumption of "changing outfits, watching performances, and staying overnight," Fujian is promoting the deep integration of marine culture and tourism, weaving the cultural lineage of the Maritime Silk Road into consumption scenarios, and transforming marine ecological advantages into new vitality for cultural tourism consumption. On the blue seas and silver beaches, new momentum for high-quality development is being released at an accelerated pace.

Cultural Lineage as the Root

Ancient Houses "Alive," Intangible Cultural Heritage "Trendy," Old Streets "Bustling"

In Quanzhou City, the Luoyang Bridge, completed in 1059, stands across the sea, and the ancient street south of the bridge backs onto the mountains and faces the sea, with red-brick houses and overseas Chinese-built Western-style buildings lined up along the street.

The now-bustling ancient street was once desolate and dilapidated, facing the dilemma of "preserved but unused, used but not enlivened." How to solve the problem? Quanzhou provides the answer—

Innovating models, ancient houses gain new life. The locality has implemented the revitalization model of "expropriation + repair-in-lieu-of-rent + leasing," and in accordance with the principles of "protection first, protect all that should be protected, promote protection through use," it has cumulatively completed the protection and restoration of nearly 20 historical buildings.

Deeply cultivating the cultural lineage, intangible cultural heritage blooms with new splendor. The restored Yuqing Tower, Qiaopi Museum, and Nanyang-style buildings have been embedded with business formats such as intangible cultural heritage displays and cultural and creative handicrafts, attracting more than 70 merchants to settle in. The average visitor stay time in the Luoyang Bridge and the ancient street area south of the bridge has been extended from 40 minutes to about half a day, and during this year's Spring Festival, it received 345,000 tourist visits, a year-on-year increase of 17.7%.

It is not just Quanzhou. Lin Ruixiang, director of the Cultural Heritage Protection Division of the Gulangyu Administrative Committee, introduced: "After the successful World Heritage application, the locality invested nearly 200 million yuan, restoring 51 cultural relics and maintaining 175 heritage-style buildings." In recent years, Gulangyu has transformed 4 national key cultural relic protection units into high-level cultural venues.

"Fujian is using culture as the backdrop and scenarios as the engine, turning old streets and ancient houses into urban reception halls where people can stroll, consume, and share." A relevant official from the Fujian Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism said.

Renewal of Business Formats

Nearby "Touring," Farther Away "Playing," Consumption "Heating Up"

On the Lujiang River under the night sky, the "Yujian" cruise ship circled most of the way around Gulangyu. Inside the cabin, the aroma of ginger duck and oyster omelets filled the air. "The experience is so fresh!" Tourist Zhou Ying was fully immersed.

Over the past three years, 13 themed cruise ships of "Yujian·Xiamen Maritime Cruise" have received an average of nearly one million visitors per year. Routes such as the Lujiang River night cruise and "Viewing Kinmen from the Sea" string together city landmarks, and marine cultural tourism consumption is becoming part of daily life.

Farther away is a different world. Yachts, sailboats, jet skis, wakesurfing... At Pingtan's No. 22 International Yacht Marina, one can go out to sea and play on the water for just one or two hundred yuan.

The supply side is also making simultaneous efforts: coordinating the spatial renovation of sea-related "performance + scenic area" projects, promoting the overall transformation of World Heritage ancient houses, old theaters, and former factory buildings into immersive performance venues. Under the province-wide "Fresh Fujian·Fujian-Style Living" themed consumption year, the construction of 100 new consumption scenarios is being coordinated and advanced, and 48 coastal scenic areas received more than 19.42 million visitors in the first half of this year.

Fujian has issued the 2026 "All Fujian Happy Shopping·Five in Fujian" consumption promotion plan, accelerating the pilot construction of new consumption business formats, models, and scenarios. "We are striving to promote the deep integration of commerce, tourism, culture, sports, and health, tap into new growth points such as entertainment and tourism, holiday economy, and ticket-stub economy, and expand new blue oceans of consumption." Huang Heming, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the Fujian Provincial Department of Commerce, said.

Living Off the Sea

Fisherfolk "Beautiful," Homestays "Clustered," Industry "Chained"

In Dazuo Village, east of Chongwu Peninsula, Hui'an County, Quanzhou City, several grandmothers, with floral headscarves tied around their heads and wearing slanted-front short jackets and wide-legged black trousers, bent over mending fishing nets in the setting sun.

Villager Zeng Meixia is the daughter of a tailor. In 2008, hearing a photographer lament that "young people no longer wear Hui'an women's clothing, and the Hui'an women's culture is afraid it will disappear," she converted her empty family house into a photography and sketching base; later, together with her husband, she turned abandoned mines and barren beaches into the Hui'an Women's Customs Park.

Tourists don the yellow bamboo hats, silver waist chains, and floral hair ornaments, becoming the focus of the camera lens. "We have prepared more than 100 sets of Hui'an women's clothing that cater to young people's aesthetics." Zeng Meixia said that she also took the lead in forming a Hui'an women's model team of more than 100 people. "Our Hui'an women's culture has become a 'new rice bowl' for guarding the sea and living off the sea."

In Dongbi Village, SanSha Town, Xiapu County, Ningde City, layers of stone houses nestle against the mountains and face the sea. Zheng Xianshi, who returned to his hometown in 2019, converted his old house into a sea-view homestay. "In the early years, the business format was single; now, backed by the sea, we have photography, tour guiding, fisherman's meals, and homestays—the business formats are complete." In 2025, Dongbi Village had 82 homestays with about 1,000 beds, and the annual revenue of the homestays exceeded 200 million yuan, driving SanSha Town to receive 4.6 million tourist visits.

Living off the sea has also produced new achievements. The fisherwomen of Nanmen Bay on Dongshan Island have turned "night squid fishing" into an experience project, where tourists go out to sea on boats with them, and the freshly caught seafood is directly boiled and served on the table; Ningde's large yellow croaker has become a signature dish at banquets and a souvenir gift from homestays, with the output value of the entire industry chain exceeding 20 billion yuan in 2025, driving employment for more than 300,000 people.

Striving forward in the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Fujian continues to promote the deep integration of marine ecological advantages, Maritime Silk Road cultural heritage, and distinctive cultural tourism industries. The "15th Five-Year Plan" "Maritime Fujian" Construction Plan clarifies that Fujian will cultivate diversified business formats such as cruise ships and yachts, beach leisure, water sports, and marine cultural experiences, build up the brand of Fujian coastal residence and travel, and by 2030, the added value of the marine tourism industry will reach more than 400 billion yuan.

A vast expanse of blue sea meeting the sky (碧海连天阔, bi hai lian tian kuo - "green sea, connect, sky, vast"). The "transformation" of a sea reflects the vibrant answer sheet of the land of eight Min striving for strength through the sea.

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Diving Gets Off to a Strong Start; Men's Football Returns to Semifinals

On September 26 local time, the Nagoya Asian Games entered its seventh competition day after the opening ceremony. The athletes of the Chinese delegation fought tenaciously and collected a total of 9 gold medals. As of the conclusion of competition on the 26th, the Chinese delegation had won a total of 107 gold, 41 silver, and 28 bronze medals at this Asian Games, firmly holding the top spot on both the gold medal table and the overall medal table.

The diving events began on the 26th at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre. The Chinese pair of Chen Yuxi and Lu Wei won the gold medal in the women's synchronized 10-meter platform with a total score of 347.82 points, securing a successful start or initial victory (开门红, kai men hong - "open, door, red") for the Chinese diving team. In the men's synchronized 3-meter springboard final, the Chinese pair of Wang Zongyuan and Zheng Jiuyuan continued their strong performance, claiming the championship with 465.87 points.

On the shooting range, the Chinese team composed of Wang Zifei, Han Jiayu, and Zhang Liyuan successfully defended their title in the women's 50-meter rifle three positions team event, tying the Asian record in the process. This was also the 100th gold medal won by the Chinese delegation at this Asian Games. In the individual event, Han Jiayu and Zhang Liyuan swept the gold and silver medals, with Han Jiayu also setting a new Asian record. The Chinese shooting team has now won 13 gold, 5 silver, and 2 bronze medals at this Asian Games.

In the table tennis mixed doubles final, the Chinese pair of Lin Shidong and Kuai Man defeated their teammates Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha 4-0 to win the Asian Games mixed doubles gold medal for the first time. Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha took the silver medal.

In the men's triple jump final held at the Mizuho Park Athletics Stadium, Chinese athlete Su Wen won the championship with a leap of 17.42 meters, breaking the Asian Games record in the event that had stood for 36 years. Another Chinese athlete, Ma Yinglong, won the bronze medal. In the women's 1,500-meter final, Li Chunhui won the silver medal.

On the morning of the 26th, the marathon event of this Asian Games got underway. Feng Peiyou, the national record holder in the men's marathon, completed a comeback in the final stages, finishing with a time of 2 hours, 12 minutes, and 13 seconds to claim the bronze medal. In the women's marathon, Chinese athlete Ciren Cuomu added another silver medal for China with a time of 2 hours, 27 minutes, and 43 seconds.

The canoe sprint events concluded in full on the 26th. The Chinese team won gold in all three events they competed in that day, ultimately concluding their Asian Games campaign with 8 gold and 2 silver medals.

In the men's football quarterfinal, the Chinese team defeated Thailand 3-0, returning to the Asian Games semifinals for the first time in 28 years. In the women's basketball bronze medal match, the Chinese women's team defeated Chinese Taipei 77-64 to claim the bronze medal.

(People's Daily reporters Li Shuo, Chen Chenxi, Sun Longfei, Wang Meihua, Gao Ji, Liu Shuoyang, Tao Xiang'an, Fan Jiayuan, and People's Daily Online reporter Hu Xuerong)

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“Such mooncakes are sure to be delicious!” (On the Scene)

By: 本报记者 窦瀚洋

Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, in the canteen kitchen of Miaogao Subdistrict, Suichang County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, a group of people were busy at work: Lei Xian'ai, deputy director of the subdistrict office, was mixing the red bean paste filling, while beside her someone was kneading dough, and Huang Mengjun, head of Lishui Suixiangji Food Co., Ltd., was in charge of dividing the dough into portions, filling them, and pressing them into molds.

"With the subdistrict's help, we were able to grow from a family workshop into a company," Huang Mengjun said. "I originally wanted to send some of our own mooncakes, but the subdistrict refused to accept them, and instead invited us over to make mooncakes together, fresh on the spot."

With a "thump," the mold came down on the workbench, and when it was lifted, the mooncake dropped out. After baking, the handmade crumbly mooncakes came out of the oven steaming hot (热气腾腾, re qi teng teng - "steam, rise, hot, hot"). Eating a mooncake, Huang Mengjun recalled the story of how she started her business.

In the first half of this year, the entrepreneurship and innovation incubation team of Miaogao Subdistrict conducted visits and learned that Huang Mengjun had the desire to start a business. At the time, her family workshop-style business premises were not yet up to standard, and her sales channels had not been opened up either. The team immediately launched entrepreneurial assistance.

Lei Xian'ai was Huang Mengjun's point of contact. Soon, the team helped Huang Mengjun find a vacant village collective building in Hubian Village, and also helped negotiate the rent, arrange the renovation, and accompany her through the acceptance inspection. In the later stages of registering the company and building the brand, the team also accompanied her the whole way, helping to connect with market regulation, taxation, and other departments. Huang Mengjun took note of all this work and kept it in her heart.

A few days ago, Huang Mengjun called Lei Xian'ai, saying she wanted to send the subdistrict a few boxes of her own mooncakes. Lei Xian'ai explained the integrity and discipline rules, and after politely declining, extended an invitation: "Xiao Huang, every Mid-Autumn Festival we visit households in difficulty and elderly people living alone to give them mooncakes. Would you like to come and teach everyone how to make mooncakes?"

And so, this scene of everyone making mooncakes in the canteen came about.

"Buying mooncakes from outside would cost quite a bit more money, and the effect wouldn't necessarily be better either," Lei Xian'ai said. Zhong Xiaoyue, a 95s-generation selected graduate, picked up the thread: "This year, we compiled more detailed statistics on the taste preferences of the people we visit and comfort. We make the mooncakes ourselves according to their needs, and ingredients like flour, red bean paste, and sesame are all purchased by ourselves, eliminating 'waste on the tip of the tongue' at the source."

As they spoke, a new batch of mooncakes came out of the oven. Everyone tasted the mooncakes they had made with their own hands—sweet in the mouth, and refreshing in the heart.

"The first time I went to her door, it was almost the Dragon Boat Festival, and Sister Mengjun insisted on giving us zongzi, but we refused too," recalled Wu Ziyang, a 00s-generation cadre. "In subsequent contacts, there was less polite formality between us and more pragmatism. We went to the enterprise every day, helping to connect with departments, negotiate rent, and follow up on inspections. The more contact we had, the deeper the help we gave, the more we had to maintain proper boundaries and not overstep."

Huang Mengjun added: "It's so much better this way—the relationship between cadres and the masses is refreshing and straightforward (清清爽爽, qing qing shuang shuang - "clear, clear, refreshing, refreshing"), and the holidays are relaxed and carefree too."

Soon, the mooncakes were cooled and boxed. Everyone carried the boxes out and knocked on door after door in the subdistrict.

Wu Shanyun, a 71-year-old elderly man living alone, took the mooncake box, held it in his hands, and smiled at it for a long time. Upon hearing that the subdistrict staff had made them by hand, he was even happier: "Mooncakes like these are sure to be fragrant!"

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Photo Report

During the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, the Hetou Old Street scenic area in Fengnan District, Tangshan City, Hebei Province was brilliant and colorful (流光溢彩, liu guang yi cai - "flowing light, overflowing color") and extraordinarily lively and bustling (热闹非凡, re nao fei fan - "noisy, not ordinary"). Residents and tourists strolled through the market, appreciated intangible cultural heritage, and watched performances, experiencing the charm of culture and celebrating the traditional festival with joy.

Photo by Li Xiuqing (Image China)

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Building a Strong Nation: Sichuan University Strives for Excellence

By: 本报记者 张 帆 游 仪

The Min Mountains rise dark and vast, and the Jin River flows broad and deep. In September this year, Sichuan University will mark the 130th anniversary of its founding.

From the inception of modern learning at the Sichuan Chinese-Western School in 1896, to its mergers with Chengdu University of Science and Technology and West China University of Medical Sciences in 1994 and 2000 respectively, this institution of higher learning has always bound its own fate closely to the nation's development. Today, the university's overall strength in running the school has entered the first echelon of domestic universities.

On the new journey of the new era, Sichuan University adheres to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, forging souls and nurturing talent in the transmission of the red gene, scaling new heights in serving national strategies, and cultivating outstanding talents in facing the future, writing a contemporary answer sheet of a western university revitalizing the nation through education.

The Red Gene: Forging the Foundational Hue of Faith through Inheritance

Jiang Zhuyun (Sister Jiang), a revolutionary martyr of unyielding integrity, once studied here and is one of the university's most shining spiritual landmarks. In the Sichuan University Sister Jiang Memorial Hall, the exhibits quietly tell the story of the youth of this "model of revolutionary spirit among the sons and daughters of China." Since its opening in 2019, it has become an important venue for Party and Youth League activities organized by groups both on and off campus.

Red is the cultural foundation of Sichuan University.

As the cradle of the May Fourth Movement in Sichuan and one of the important birthplaces of the spread of Marxism in China, Sichuan University established the first Marxist reading society in the southwest and set up the earliest Communist Party of China organization in Sichuan. Zhang Lan, "benefactor and friend of the Party," and Wu Yuzhang, one of the "Five Elders of Yan'an," once presided over the university's affairs; Marshal Zhu De of the Republic, former President Yang Shangkun, literary giant Guo Moruo, and people's writer Ba Jin once studied here; and a large number of communist fighters such as Wang Youmu, Yang Angong, and Tong Yongsheng plunged into the revolutionary torrent from here.

Let the red gene merge into the blood of youth. Guided by the promotion of Sister Jiang's spiritual character, the university has established "Sister Jiang Classes," which now cover multiple colleges. From the College of Life Sciences to the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, from the School of Chemical Engineering to West China School of Clinical Medicine, students, inspired by Sister Jiang's spiritual character, integrate their personal aspirations into national development. Generation after generation of Sichuan University students, steeped in red culture, have strengthened their ideals and convictions and grown into new-era figures capable of shouldering the great task of national rejuvenation.

Let academic research promote ethnic unity. At the research base for forging a sense of community for the Chinese nation, Li Xuan, a professor from the School of History and Culture, leads students in deep scholarly work. Nearby, a striking slogan reads, "Let the story of the pomegranate seeds bloom on every inch of our land." This research institution, established in 2020, aims to explore the characteristics and laws of the aggregation and evolution of the Chinese nation and has been awarded the title of "National Model Collective for Ethnic Unity and Progress."

"Through comparison of multilingual documents, I have systematically examined the history of the dissemination of the concept of the 'Chinese nation' in the written languages of ethnic minorities," Li Xuan said. Every year, he spends at least one month conducting field research in ethnic regions to deepen theoretical research on the community of the Chinese nation.

Let rare and esoteric scholarship be passed down from generation to generation. The Chinese Folk Culture Research Institute is a major center for Dunhuang studies and vernacular language research in China. The late renowned scholar Xiang Chu, through more than half a century of dedication here, accomplished the transmission of the warmth of this rare and esoteric field. To fully grasp its profound mysteries, Xiang Chu read through the vast and voluminous literature (卷帙浩繁, juan zhi hao fan - "scrolls, vast, numerous") of the Tripitaka three times, combining various elements into a single whole (熔于一炉, rong yu yi lu - "melt, into, one, furnace") the study of language, documents, literature, and religion, and won back the "right to speak" for Chinese Dunhuang studies. Scholars represented by Zhou Yukai and He Jianping are continuously advancing the research enterprise initiated by Xiang Chu.

"When I was a student, Mr. Xiang taught us. A student would read a passage, and then the teacher would interpret it. With the teacher's guidance, even the most abstruse scholarship could be understood and mastered," said Wang Changlin, associate professor at the School of Literature, with deep feeling. "Dunhuang studies concerns cultural confidence, and there will always be people willing to carry it on."

Serving the Overall Situation: Standing Tall as the Backbone of the Times in Tackling Difficulties

Serving the country through scientific research and striving for strength through innovation is the unchanging pursuit of Sichuan University. The university focuses on the "four orientations" and perseveres unremittingly in serving high-level self-reliance and strength in science and technology.

Seeking energy from the deep and distant seas. At Dongfang Heavy Machinery, a subsidiary of Dongfang Electric Group in Nansha District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, Liu Tao, a researcher at the Institute of New Energy and Low-Carbon Technology, has been particularly busy recently. "The original technology of Academician Xie Heping can directly electrolyze seawater to produce hydrogen as if it were pure water. We are currently conducting long-term stability verification of this technology."

In November 2022, the team of Academician Xie Heping published an original paper on direct seawater electrolysis for hydrogen production in the journal Nature, which was rated among the Top Ten Scientific Advances in China for 2022. Shortly after the paper was published, Dongfang Electric approached them, seeking the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.

Seeking breakthroughs in innovative drugs. "We do whatever the country needs," said Shao Zhenhua, deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy. Under the leadership of Academician Wei Yuquan, director of the laboratory, an innovation ecosystem of multidisciplinary intersection has been formed here. From drug target discovery to clinical translation, 13 pilot-scale production platforms cover the entire chain. Since 2023, 19 new drugs have obtained clinical trial approvals.

Shouldering responsibility in guarding life. On August 26, a mudslide disaster caused heavy casualties and missing persons at the Gyirong Port in Gyirong County, Shigatse City, Tibet. West China Hospital of Sichuan University dispatched a psychological rescue expert team to rush to the scene, providing psychological intervention and medical support to relocated and resettled residents and rescue workers. In recent years, West China Hospital has participated in nearly a hundred emergency medical responses and disaster emergency medical rescues at home and abroad. The West China telemedicine network has become China's largest telemedicine education and tiered collaborative medical system, with nearly 1,200 network hospitals.

Seeking the future in the vast firmament. As one of the first universities in China to engage in aerospace talent cultivation and scientific research, Sichuan University established its Department of Aeronautical Engineering as early as 1944. In 2025, the "Advanced Material Energy Conversion and Regeneration System" on-orbit experimental device developed by Sichuan University was successfully launched aboard the Tianzhou-9 cargo spacecraft. In 2026, the Sichuan University team was approved and received 200 milligrams of lunar soil samples from Chang'e-5 and Chang'e-6, marking the university's official entry into the "real lunar soil" experimental research stage in key fields such as in-situ lunar resource utilization, extraterrestrial geomechanics, and space mining.

"We will continue to focus on national strategic needs, strengthen organized research, write papers on the motherland's land, apply research achievements where the country needs them most, and effectively enhance our support and contribution to the country and society," said Wang Jinsong, president of Sichuan University.

Talent Cultivation: Nurturing Future Pillars of the Nation through Diligent Work

Sichuan University has always kept in mind its original aspiration and founding mission of educating people for the Party and cultivating talent for the country. Each year, the university enrolls more than 60 percent of its undergraduate students and more than 70 percent of its graduate students from western China, and more than 60 percent of its graduates choose to take root in the west for employment and entrepreneurship.

In 1999, Sichuan University joined the "China Young Volunteers Poverty Alleviation Relay Program Postgraduate Teaching Corps." Over the past 27 years, 405 team members have taken turns going to the Daliang Mountains. In the past decade, they have helped 52 students gain admission to "Double First-Class" universities.

Let Chinese solutions go global. West China School of Stomatology is the birthplace of modern stomatology in China. In 2015, the school began independently developing virtual simulation dental training equipment, and today it has formed eight categories of training equipment covering all stages from the first to the fifth year of undergraduate study.

In June this year, the International Training Course on Advanced Diagnosis and Treatment Technology for Cleft Lip and Palate for Belt and Road Initiative countries was held at West China School of Stomatology, with 40 medical staff from 13 countries participating. Shen Jiefei, deputy Party secretary of West China School of Stomatology, said: "In the past, we sent students abroad; now, international trainees come to us to study."

Let innovative education stimulate potential. The university upholds an integrated talent cultivation philosophy of value shaping, ability cultivation, and knowledge transmission, and runs innovation and entrepreneurship education through the entire process and all courses of talent cultivation.

Since 2010, Sichuan University has explored higher-order learning through inquiry-based small-class classroom teaching, while also building a general education system characterized by "one goal, two main lines, three leading courses, ten selected courses, five major modules, and one hundred core courses." Students have won 85 gold awards in the China International College Students' Innovation Competition and the "Challenge Cup" competition, and four satellite payloads independently developed by the "Tian Ge Plan" team composed of undergraduates have been successfully launched into orbit and stationed on the Chinese Space Station.

The Jin River surges onward, carrying forward the torch of civilization; the Min Mountains stand tall and majestic, upholding the peak of faith.

Standing at the historical juncture of the 130th anniversary and looking back, Sichuan University's footsteps are engraved with the mark of walking alongside the motherland. This century-old institution, with its roots planted deep in the fertile soil of the west, its heart pressed close to the pulse of the motherland, and its gaze fixed on the world's frontiers, has cultivated more than 1.2 million graduates, injecting hope and strength into the great journey of national rejuvenation.

Gan Lin, Party secretary of Sichuan University, said that Sichuan University will serve national strategies, promote the implementation and effectiveness of the "Ascending the Heights," "Going Global," "Invigorating Energy," and "Refining Medicine" plans, and strive to answer well the contemporary examination question of "building a strong country, Sichuan University has a role to play."

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Echoes of Red on the Banks of the Jinsha River

By: 本报记者 杨文明 张 驰

In September, driving out of Shanle Village, Jiaopingdu Township, Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County, Kunming City, Yunnan, marigolds blaze brightly on both sides of the winding mountain road, with fields of crops "hung" on the slopes. After nearly 30 kilometers and seventeen or eighteen hairpin turns, the Jinsha River comes into view.

"The Jinsha's waters beat the cloud-capped cliffs, warming them." In May 1935, at Jiaopingdu Ferry, tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers, with the help of 37 boatmen, crossed the Jinsha River by wooden boat, breaking free from the enemy's pursuit and encirclement.

What meets the eye is still towering mountains and deep-flowing river waters, but the former natural barrier has become a thoroughfare — the new Jiaopingdu Bridge spans both banks like a long dragon lying on the waves.

In January 2020, during an inspection tour in Yunnan, General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: "Yunnan has a glorious revolutionary tradition and many deeply moving and touching (感人肺腑, gan ren fei fu - "feel, touch, lungs, intestines") stories. These stories should be used as vivid teaching material for education on staying true to the Party's original aspiration and founding mission, guiding Party members and cadres to constantly examine and nourish their original aspiration, and constantly temper their political character of loyalty, integrity, and responsibility."

Thoroughly implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions, Yunnan actively utilizes its red resources, carries forward the great Long March spirit, anchors itself to green development, and inspires the broad masses of cadres and the people to walk the Long March road of the new era well.

Safeguarding red history, polishing the marks of revolution —

In Dangui Village, Kedu Township, Xundian Hui and Yi Autonomous County, Kunming City, at the Red Army Long March Kedu Memorial Hall, docent Gong Yuan is pointing at a 3D model of a musical clock, telling visitors the story of the Red Army returning the musical clock: "In early May 1935, Comrade Mao Zedong discovered a beautiful musical clock in the hands of his guard. Upon asking where it came from, he learned that the guard, feeling that the march required a timepiece, had picked it up when he saw it while lodging in Dangui Village. Comrade Mao Zedong ordered the guard to return it immediately..."

"This little musical clock bears witness to the Red Army's iron discipline," Gong Yuan said. "Today, digital means help us better use cultural relics to step into the magnificent sweep of history."

Weixin County, Zhaotong City, has invested a cumulative total of about 32 million yuan to complete restoration projects on 29 major revolutionary site relics and built red culture venues such as the Red Army Long March Slogan Museum; Xiangyun County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, has carried out naming and protection for all 44 revolutionary sites in the county, establishing a "one site, one card" archive for every red site; Qujing Economic and Technological Development Zone, centering on the Sanyuanggong Conference site, combines physical objects, historical images, and dynamic sand tables to tell the story of the Red Army's Long March well... Yunnan is accelerating the construction of the Long March National Cultural Park, going all out to implement projects for the protection and inheritance of red history, research and excavation, and supporting facilities.

Inheriting the red gene, promoting the integration of culture and tourism —

At the "Old Boatman's Home, Eight Camps" restaurant in Jinrui Community, Wudongde Town, Luquan Yi and Miao Autonomous County, operator Pei Xinhui serves up a steaming bowl of peanut and soybean dregs soup and opens up: "My maternal grandfather was Zhang Chaoman, an old boatman who helped the Red Army cross the Jinsha River. Grandfather always said the Red Army gave the boatmen thick porridge cooked from corn, red beans, and millet, while they themselves drank only thin gruel. The boatmen's descendants will never forget the Red Army's kindness — this peanut and soybean dregs soup is exactly the 'boatman's dish' from those days." Pei Xinhui also volunteers to tell red stories and spent over 1,000 yuan to acquire a wooden boat: "With a wooden boat, the stories feel more vivid."

In Yunnan, the "red +" integrated development model is taking root in many places.

Weixin County has built 11 study and research bases around the Zhaxi Conference's "one museum, three sites," forming 5 boutique study tour routes that have attracted more than 45,000 person-trips cumulatively; in Qijie Community, Dayao County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, bluestone-paved roads string together revolutionary relics and red culture landmarks, attracting more than 20,000 tourist visits in 2025... According to statistics, in 2025, the seven prefectures (cities) along the Long March route received a total of 811 million tourist visits, achieving total tourism expenditure of 837.44 billion yuan.

Taking root in the red fertile soil, nurturing a green future —

On the natural barrier of the Jinsha River that the Red Army fought so hard to break through during the Long March, world-class hydropower stations such as Wudongde, Baihetan, and Xiangjiaba now stand in sequence. As the world's second-largest hydropower project by installed capacity, the Baihetan Hydropower Station can generate an average of 62.443 billion kilowatt-hours per year, and its maximum daily generation can meet the daily living electricity needs of 148 million people.

By the Jinsha River, Qiaojia County, Zhaotong City, promotes standardized planting techniques and fills the gap in primary processing, enabling the green peppercorn industry to improve quality and efficiency and achieve scaled development, driving income growth for more than 46,000 farming households across 17 townships (subdistricts).

Leveraging its green electricity advantage, Yunnan Shuifu Economic and Technological Development Zone has formed a new energy battery industry cluster covering cathode and anode materials and cell manufacturing, with the total industrial output value of the new energy battery and supporting industries reaching 3.16 billion yuan in 2025. At present, Yunnan's clean energy installed capacity accounts for more than 90% of total installed power capacity. In the first eight months of this year, Yunnan's green electricity trading volume reached 1.177 billion kilowatt-hours, a year-on-year increase of 124%.

The journey is as magnificent as a rainbow, the spirit as bright as a torch — the great Long March spirit is continuously being transformed into the driving force for high-quality development across the land of Yunnan.

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Page 1 editors: Yang Xu, Hu Anqi, Zhao Zheng; Page 2 editors: Wu Gang, Zhou Zhou, Xie Jianing; Page 3 editors: Lin Lin, Lü Li, Qi Jiarun; Page 4 editors: Bai Zhiyu, Liu Nian, Liu Jingwen

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Century Canal: Living in Harmony with All Things

Fish Have Ladders, Land Animals Have Bridges

People's Daily reporter Zhang Yunhe

Inside the water observation room at the Qingnian (Youth) Junction of the Pinglu Canal, a pane of glass faces directly toward the water flow of the fishway. The water can be seen carrying sediment, ripples spreading across the surface, and occasionally a fish shadow passing by in a flash (一闪而过, yi shan er guo - "one, flash; and, pass"), its species hard to distinguish with the naked eye.

"What we just observed was a river perch." In another control room, in front of a large visualization screen, Chen Zhu, the resident engineer stationed at the Qingnian Junction of the Pinglu Canal Construction Command, lightly clicked his mouse to call up footage captured by an underwater camera. Through AI (artificial intelligence) fish species identification, he recorded the fish's swimming speed and body length, and tallied their numbers.

There is a water level difference of about 10 meters between the upstream and downstream of the Qingnian Junction. The current is swift, and the migration of fish and shrimp is interrupted. How to solve this problem?

In April 2025, the Qingnian Junction fishway was put into operation. The 480.2-meter vertical-slot fishway winds and rises along the riverbank, with 120 pool chambers and 3 resting pools arranged layer upon layer, building a ladder for the fish. "Energy is dissipated step by step, and the flow is slowed in stages, transforming the swift current into a gentle stepped waterway," Chen Zhu said.

When fish tire from swimming upstream, the spacious resting pools in the middle section serve as their "service area." The water flow in the pools is gentle, allowing them to rest, forage, and build up strength. Once they have regained their energy, they continue their migration.

Since the fishway was put into operation, 119,000 fish have been monitored moving downstream and 78,000 moving upstream, with more than 10 fish species resuming migration.

Fish have ladders, and land animals have bridges.

In the watershed area, the canal's river surface is wide and open. A 240-meter animal passage bridge lies quietly across the two banks.

This is the most special bridge along the entire canal — no vehicles cross it, no people walk on it, only animals.

The bridge surface is covered with mature topsoil native to the mountain body, with a soil layer 0.6 to 1.2 meters thick, containing forest humus and microbial communities from the wild, striving to restore the mountain forest landform as faithfully as possible; the bottom layer is paved with crushed stone and fitted with geotextile fabric, providing waterproofing and seepage control, blocking root systems, and stabilizing the bridge structure.

Zhang Shoulong, an engineer in the Engineering Management Department of Guangxi Pinglu Canal Construction Co., Ltd., said: "Building a bridge for animals — even in infrastructure construction, our warmth is hidden within."

The canal cuts through mountains to open its path, but it also sliced through the habitats of wild animals such as the spotted linsang, the leopard cat, and the red-bellied squirrel, blocking their migration.

A passage road was built for wild animals. This dedicated passage bridge across the canal for terrestrial wild animals thus came into being, known by people as the "flying bridge" on land.

On this bridge, tree species such as longan, Chinese banyan, and the false Sterculia bear berries and nuts year-round for animals to feed on; hibiscus, bottlebrush, and small-flowered crape myrtle are interspersed among them, attracting insects and birds and weaving a food source chain within the forest; dead wood, scattered rocks, flowers, and grasses are set up to leave hiding and drinking places for small animals; the bridge's side railings are covered with climbing vines, forming a green wall that reduces noise and provides sound insulation. Beneath the "flying bridge," cargo ships pass back and forth without cease; above the bridge deck, the vegetation is quiet and secluded, and birds and beasts move through.

Every Tree Is "Cherished"

People's Daily reporter Li Weijun

How much does a tree weigh? At the construction site of the Pinglu Canal, this question has two answers:

One answer is more than 50 tons: this is the weight lifted, together with the root ball of soil, when relocating a 200-year-old ancient camphor tree along the canal route.

The other answer must be calculated in decades or centuries: for a mangrove to grow from a single seed into a green embankment requires a long time; for an ancient camphor tree to grow from a seedling into a towering tree requires a hundred years or more.

At Maowei Sea in Qinzhou City, Guangxi, the mudflats are densely covered with mangroves, like a green barrier spread along the coastline. He Junhui, head of the Engineering Management Department of the Pinglu Canal Group, introduced that a mature mangrove forest can dissipate waves and protect the shore, consolidate soil and promote siltation, purify seawater, and provide habitat space for organisms such as fish, shrimp, crabs, and birds.

The waterway at the Pinglu Canal's estuary happens to pass through this area.

Let the trees come first, then open the navigation channel. "The final plan's waterway is not the shortest, but rather more difficult to construct, more time-consuming, and more costly — yet it has the least impact on the mangroves," said Wu Peng, chief expert in the planning and design of the Pinglu Canal project. This single adjustment alone reduced mangrove occupation by about 50 mu.

What about mangroves that truly cannot be avoided?

On the suitable mangrove-planting mudflats of Sanniang Bay in Xinjiao Town, Qinzhou City, the project team independently developed techniques such as "in-situ domestication" and "7-times root-soil mass retention." Mangroves planted at three times the restoration area reached 275,000 seedlings, with a total area of 32.2968 hectares. For the original mangroves remaining around the waterway, the project team ensured the survival safety of these "guardians of the ocean" through measures such as pulling up several kilometers of anti-pollution curtains, adopting low-disturbance cutter-suction dredging construction techniques, and driving thousands of wave piles to support the root systems.

"Today, within the mangrove protection zones along the Pinglu Canal, bird species have increased from 28 to 34, and the ecological corridor has basically taken shape," said Qin Xiaofeng, business manager of the Engineering Management Department of Pinglu Canal Group Co., Ltd.

An ancient camphor tree more than 200 years old in Liangwu Village, Shaping Town, Lingshan County, Qinzhou City, lay on the canal route and was originally planned to be transplanted to the Qinzhou Garden Expo Park.

"The home has moved away, and the people have left too. If the tree doesn't follow, our hearts always feel empty..." The villagers' words were full of reluctance, and the Pinglu Canal construction management team decided to help the villagers move the ancient tree to the doorstep of their new homes.

This ancient camphor tree is 12.3 meters tall, with a diameter at breast height of 1.08 meters and a root ball about 5 meters in diameter. Together with the soil, it weighs more than 50 tons. Before the transplant, the construction team prepared it seven months in advance: inspecting for pests, pruning branches and leaves, gradually severing roots, and shrinking the root ball... Now the villagers can rest in the camphor tree's shade once again.

"The Pinglu Canal project has cumulatively relocated and protected 36 ancient trees, including camphor trees, lychee trees, and longan trees," said Zhang Shoulong, an engineer of the Pinglu Canal Construction Group. The growth rings of trees contain no writing, but they record the memories of homesickness and also consolidate the canal's ecological foundation.

Sewage Stored Onboard, Delivered Upon Arrival at Shore

People's Daily reporter Zhu Jiaqi

In the early morning, the ship "Guangxing 798," departing from Qinzhou Port in Guangxi, was about to enter the inland river section of the Pinglu Canal. Wang Shengke, the on-site law enforcement officer in charge of the Pinglu Canal for the Qinzhou Maritime Safety Administration, crouched in the stern compartment, sealing both the domestic sewage and oily sewage piping systems with lead seals at the same time. Upon arrival at the Qinzhou water service area, hoses were connected to the sewage outlets on the ship's side, the ship's oily sewage and domestic sewage were handed over to shore, and the sewage disposal data was entered into the system... This is the daily procedure for ships during the operation period of the Pinglu Canal.

In the past, shipping on the main line of the Xijiang River was a different scene. Back then, ships mainly relied on onboard sewage treatment devices to filter and then discharge the water themselves. To avoid trouble, crew members often chose to discharge directly. With a large number of ships running on one river, it was difficult to keep watch on every single ship.

"Rather than repeatedly wrangling over the question of 'whether it can be discharged,' it is better to change the way of thinking — turning the problem into 'whether there is a place to hand it over.' Store it onboard, hand it over upon arrival at shore, and let professional departments handle it centrally. Once the chain is unblocked, 'zero discharge' can truly stand firm," said Zhang Youchang, director of the Hazardous Goods Management and Pollution Prevention Division of the Guangxi Maritime Safety Administration.

First, there must be a place to hand it over. The two major water service areas, Xinfu and Qinzhou, are located one in the south and one in the north, covering the middle and upper reaches of the Pinglu Canal and its estuary. Their reception facilities were put into use simultaneously with the opening of navigation on the canal. Sewage is stored by category at the service areas and then transferred and disposed of by qualified units. According to the "Pinglu Canal Ship Pollution Prevention Management Regulations," the reception capacity of the service areas is not merely "being able to receive is enough"; it must also have matching storage, transfer, and disposal capabilities, to avoid the awkward situation of "the ship has arrived, but the tank is full."

The path of direct discharge must also be physically blocked. Before a ship enters the inland river section, all pollutant discharge pipeline valves leading overboard, except for the standard discharge connection valve, must be sealed with lead seals, and the drain holes and discharge holes of machinery and equipment on the freeboard deck and above must be plugged. Each lead seal is assigned a unique number, and its status and all historical operation records can be queried through the maritime smart supervision system.

"The lead seal is a lock, not a sticker. Once the pipelines are sealed, sewage has no other path except to be stored on the ship. A ship must complete the lead seal inspection before entering the canal's inland river section; otherwise, it is not allowed to enter," said Zheng Tingyu, a crew member of the ship "Guangxing 798."

Considering that the ecological damage consequences differ between inland rivers and the ocean, the Guangxi Maritime Safety Administration has divided the canal into an inland river section and a coastal section by water area, with different pollution prevention rules applicable to each. There are clear requirements for the reception, treatment, and emergency response capabilities of docks, loading and unloading stations, and service areas, and clear constraints on pollution damage compensation liability and pollution damage liability insurance for ships carrying hazardous chemicals. Through remote monitoring via the smart maritime supervision platform, maritime personnel can detect anomalies and provide early warnings and handle them in a timely manner.

"'Store onboard, deliver upon arrival at shore.' With the service areas built, the lead seals tightly locked, and the transfer chain unblocked, 'zero discharge' is not just a slogan, but a path that can be followed over the long term," Zhang Youchang said.

Engineering Spoil Turned into Treasure

People's Daily reporter Pang Geping

Inside the greenhouse, Tang Xiaofu, associate professor at the College of Agriculture of Guangxi University, bent down and picked a muskmelon.

He weighed it in his hand, then handed it to a villager beside him: "Have a taste."

"Sweet," the villager said as he ate.

"Sugar content above 17," Tang Xiaofu said, standing up and patting the soil off his hands. "Sweeter than most muskmelons on the market."

This greenhouse is at the planting demonstration base beside the Madao Junction of the Pinglu Canal, and the soil in the greenhouse all came from the excavation of the Pinglu Canal.

The earth and rock excavated from the Pinglu Canal amount to approximately 315 million cubic meters, enough to fill 20 West Lakes in Hangzhou. These earth and rock materials were originally piled up along the canal's banks, continuous and uninterrupted (连绵不断, lian mian bu duan - "continuous, connect, not, break"). How should they be properly handled?

The planting demonstration base is a large-scale application scenario for the resource utilization of the Pinglu Canal's earth and rock spoil. The Pinglu Canal Group and Guangxi University conducted research on the properties of different types of earth and rock, the effects of improvement, and suitable utilization, and recorded soil properties. Tang Xiaofu has conducted research at this base for more than three years: selecting seeds, amending the soil, and trial planting. He successively tested 318 varieties of vegetables, fruits, and melons, and ultimately selected 36 varieties suitable for planting here.

"At the beginning, the soil was no good," Tang Xiaofu said. "It was too acidic, with too much sand and gravel, lacking nutrients, and could neither retain fertilizer nor water."

They spread calcium carbonate on the land to adjust the pH, and then mixed in organic fertilizer, bagasse ash, and calcium-magnesium-phosphate fertilizer.

After more than half a year of amendment, the soil's properties gradually changed.

In the base now, tomatoes are flowering and bearing fruit, eggplants are glossy purple, peppers are a mix of red and green, and there is also a strangely shaped ornamental pumpkin, each selling for 5 yuan, with a per-mu yield of more than 8,000.

"This soil can grow things." Villagers from nearby villages came to take a look twice, and when they went back, they planted vegetables in their own fields.

Over the past few years, the excavators and transport vehicles near the planting demonstration base have worked day and night without stopping. Part of the excavated earth and rock was hauled to low-lying areas for backfilling.

Li Zaiming, deputy general manager of Pinglu Canal Construction Co., Ltd., is responsible for the comprehensive utilization of earth and rock spoil. He stood beside a sugarcane field and stamped on the soil beneath his feet.

"It's soft and spongy, like stepping on a sponge," he said. This sugarcane field covers more than 500 mu, with more than 3.5 million cubic meters of canal earth filled underneath. Land leveling began last year, first filling a 20-centimeter subsoil layer, then covering it with a 30-centimeter-thick topsoil layer.

"Worried that the land would lack water, we built 5 field ditches, 4 culvert pipes, and 2 water storage ponds," Li Zaiming said.

The sugarcane has now grown to 2 meters tall, and when the wind blows, the field rustles loudly.

"Ratoon sugarcane can be harvested for 3 consecutive seasons," said Li Wenmao, a technician from Guangxi Sugar Group. "This is the second season, and the soil is even more fertile than last year." When it was first backfilled, the soil was extremely barren, and in the first year they had to apply 30 percent more fertilizer, add top dressing two or three extra times, and alternate between chicken manure and sugarcane filter mud.

"In one growing season, raw soil turns into mature soil," Li Wenmao said.

Data shows that along the Pinglu Canal route, there are 101 stockpile sites requiring land reclamation, with a total area of approximately 37,600 mu. As of July this year, 82 land reclamation plans have been completed, with a cumulative total of 28,878 mu of land leveled, 26,567 mu covered with suitable surface topsoil, and 26,420 mu planted for reclamation.

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Ecological Details Hold the Key to High-Quality Development

By: 李红梅

A "smart fishway" designed specifically for fish allows migratory life to pass unobstructed and smooth (畅通无阻, chang tong wu zu - "smooth, pass, no, block"); a canal bridge covered with soil, planted green, and blooming with wildflowers leaves migration corridors for wildlife; a mangrove forest standing at the canal's estuary is guarded day and night by nearly 4,000 wave piles and 77,000 meters of anti-pollution curtains... Recently, the Pinglu Canal officially opened to navigation, and these ecological details hidden within the century project have been seen one by one, and have been frequently praised.

The 134.2-kilometer Pinglu Canal is the first grand canal connecting rivers to the sea built since the founding of New China, and is a "century project" that will surely be recorded in history. Such a grand project carrying a century of expectations has nonetheless always shown gentleness toward all things in nature—a single mangrove tree, a single small fish are all carefully "cherished," and even the spoil generated by the project has been restored and reused, nurturing delicious tomatoes, melons, and fruits. One vivid ecological story after another, within the grand narrative of the century project, all the more highlights the "craftsmanship" and preciousness of ecological protection, vividly interprets the development philosophy of respecting nature and protecting nature, and also conceals the code of high-quality development.

The ecological story of the Pinglu Canal is precisely a vivid footnote to the coordinated advancement of high-quality development and high-level protection. Humanity uses canal engineering to transform nature, allowing the great river and the sea, separated by layers of mountains, to embrace, turning the dream of "connecting rivers to the sea" into reality, and writing a vivid and striking (浓墨重彩, nong mo zhong cai - "thick, ink, heavy, color") stroke in the history of human development. And the canal project itself originates from nature and has always been a part of nature—it "shakes hands" and connects with mountains, rivers, and seas, living in symbiotic dependence (相依共生, xiang yi gong sheng - "mutually, rely, together, live"). In the construction of the Pinglu Canal, the river passes through mountains, waters, forests, fields, and lakes, and finally embraces the ocean. Mountains, waters, forests, fields, and lakes are independent ecosystems of the natural world, which together with the flora and fauna that coexist form a complete biological chain. This is a "chain-like home" where all things coexist, and it is also the natural foundation on which the canal project depends for its development. A stable and healthy ecosystem and a diverse and complete biological chain can help the canal project operate smoothly and enable the project to better integrate into the natural "chain-like home"; conversely, if the ecosystem and biological chain are not protected, high-quality development will inevitably lose its support.

Incorporating fishways, animal bridges, and mangrove anti-pollution curtains into the engineering design, carrying out an "overall relocation" of 36 ancient trees and a village, restoring and reusing over 300 million cubic meters of spoil, and building a "near-zero carbon" clean energy corridor... These are the ecological ingenuity of the Pinglu Canal, and they are also long-term considerations focused on high-quality sustainable development. Protecting nature and following nature are the foundation of development; integrating into nature and coexisting with all things not only builds a solid ecological foundation for the project, but also cultivates the momentum for green development, efficiently boosting the Pinglu Canal onto the path of high-quality development.

Chinese modernization is the modernization of harmony between humanity and nature. Respecting, following, and protecting nature is an intrinsic requirement of comprehensively building a modern socialist country. Firmly establishing and practicing the concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets (绿水青山就是金山银山, lv shui qing shan jiu shi jin shan yin shan - "green, water, green, mountain, exactly, is, gold, mountain, silver, mountain"), planning development from the height of harmony between humanity and nature, and achieving the unity of high-quality development and high-level protection are the "required questions" entrusted to us by the times. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the construction of a Beautiful China has taken solid steps, with all regions and departments coordinating the advancement of carbon reduction, pollution reduction, green expansion, and growth, giving rise to a large number of ecological stories of pollution prevention and control, flora and fauna protection, desertification prevention and greening, and green low-carbon development. These ecological stories are like paintings that are continuously pieced together into the scroll of a Beautiful China, and they are also increasingly thickening the green foundation of high-quality development, accumulating momentum for green development, continuously transforming into surging strength for high-quality development, and accelerating the construction of Chinese modernization featuring harmony between humanity and nature.

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Page editors: Shen Shaotie

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Reunion Under the Moon on Moon Mountain (Cultural China Tour)

The Mid-Autumn moon is full and bright, its silver light spilling over the mountains. Our reporters visited three mountains sharing the same name, "Moon Mountain" — at Moon Mountain in Huangshi, Hubei, osmanthus fragrance fills the courtyards, returning wanderers raise cups with family and friends, enjoying the city lights and sharing feelings of homesickness; at Moon Mountain in Rongjiang, Guizhou, the sound of the lusheng fills the Miao villages, men and women gather in circles on the level ground to dance under the moon, joyful songs accompanied by rice wine, celebrating both harvest and reunion; at Moon Mountain in Xiji, Ningxia, barren slopes have been clothed in green and mountain springs flow once more, forest rangers patrol the mountain under the moon, guarding a mountain of clear moonlight...

A mountain of clear moon, shining across ancient and modern times. The Mid-Autumn moonlight shines on Moon Mountain, and on every person gazing at the moon.

— Editor

Moon Mountain, Huangshi, Hubei

Osmanthus fragrance wafts, homesickness runs deep

People's Daily reporter Fan Haotian

Freshly baked mooncakes are crisp, fragrant, soft and glutinous; just-steamed hairy crabs are piping hot... On another Mid-Autumn night, in the courtyard of Meilin Mountain Villa in Xisaishan District, Huangshi City, Hubei, dozens of people sit around a long table, accompanied by the sweet, rich fragrance of osmanthus, as the annual reunion feast gets underway.

"Every Mid-Autumn Festival, I invite family and friends to come here to celebrate. The city is lively during the festival, but watching the moon in the mountains has more flavor — with the fragrance of flowers, the bright moon, and old friends, this is what Mid-Autumn should be like," said proprietress Huang Xiulian as she poured tea for the seated family and friends.

Xisaishan District is one of the central urban districts of Huangshi, and Moon Mountain, located on the south shore of Cihu Lake, is the district's newly popular tourist destination.

"Moon Mountain sits at the eastern foot of Huangjing Mountain, bordering Cihu Lake to the north and overlooking the Yangtze River to the east. It is the closest spot in the Huangshi urban area where one can climb high to view the lake, the river, and the city's nightscape all at once," said Zhang Zhichao, head of the Publicity Department of the Xisaishan District Party Committee. According to local gazetteer records, Moon Mountain got its name because on the night of the fifteenth day of the lunar month, the mountain and the opposing Wangyue (Moon-Gazing) Mountain form the spectacular sight of a "rabbit gazing at the moon."

This "mountain within the city," rising more than 400 meters above sea level, carries the Mid-Autumn memories of several generations of Huangshi residents. Huang Xiulian, now 60, still remembers that as a child, she often went hiking with her family up the mountain to enjoy the moon from a height. At that time, the winding mountain road had not yet been built, and going up and down the mountain relied entirely on walking — time-consuming and exhausting.

Huangshi is rich in mineral resources, and the Huangjing Mountain range where Moon Mountain is located, due to large-scale limestone quarrying since the 1970s and 1980s, had become full of holes and flaws (千疮百孔, qian chuang bai kong - "thousand, wounds, hundred, holes"). In the early 1990s, Huang Xiulian and her husband Xu Weicai, driven by the needs of making a living, traveled from place to place across many regions.

During those years of wandering away from home, whenever the Mid-Autumn moon was full, the couple, being in a foreign land and always on the move, could not properly reunite to enjoy the moon, but in their hearts they were always concerned for their native soil.

To restore the green waters and green mountains, Xisaishan District advanced the treatment project for the open-pit quarry mouths on the northern foot of Huangjing Mountain, artificially constructing natural vegetation with a three-dimensional configuration of trees, shrubs, herbs, and vines. In August 2006, Huangjing Mountain Scenic Area was successfully designated a provincial-level forest park. In 2017, Huangjing Mountain Forest Park completed a 6.5-kilometer hiking trail and supporting facilities.

Seeing that the environment in their hometown was getting better and better, in 2008 Huang Xiulian and her husband returned to their old house in the village, transferred the use rights of several hundred mu of land, planted trees and flowers, raised chickens and pigs, built an agritainment and guesthouse, and founded Meilin Mountain Villa. Since then, inviting family and friends to Moon Mountain to enjoy the bright moon together has become the couple's "signature program" for every Mid-Autumn Festival.

Today, in early spring, the 30,000 cherry trees at Meilin Mountain Villa bloom in succession, the pink sea of flowers blending with the distant outline of the Yangtze River, making Moon Mountain a popular spot for citizens to view early cherry blossoms; around the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the autumn air is crisp and clear, the "rabbit gazing at the moon" spectacle attracts many hiking enthusiasts to climb high and enjoy the moon.

Moon Mountain is not only beautiful in scenery, but also rich in cultural heritage. The Feiyun (Flying Cloud) Cave halfway up the mountain is hidden within the mountain — the upper cave emits clouds, the middle cave emits wind, and the lower cave emits water, named "Yiquan" (Strange Spring). During the rainy season, waterfalls cascade down, a magnificent sight. Qiao Changan, a Huangshi cultural and historical expert, introduced that the Tang Dynasty poet Yuan Jie once lived in seclusion here and composed literary works such as the "Inscription on the Strange Spring."

Setting out from Meilin Mountain Villa and winding up the mountain road, the 80-meter-tall Huangshi Television Tower stands atop the summit, one of Huangshi's landmark buildings. Gazing into the distance from the television tower, the lights of ten thousand households in the Huangshi urban area below, and the distant Mingyue (Bright Moon) Bridge on Cihu Lake spanning the water, connecting with Wangyue Pavilion and Chengyue Island.

On the mountain trails, in the villages at the foot of the mountain, and beside the guesthouses in the mountains, some walk with their families in leisurely conversation, others pause with close friends to gaze at the moon. Different scenes, different figures, yet all telling the same story of reunion and longing.

Moon Mountain, Rongjiang, Guizhou

Moon full over the Miao mountains, busy with moon dancing

People's Daily reporter Chen Junyi

At the Mid-Autumn Festival season, deep in Moon Mountain in Rongjiang County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou, nightfall spreads over the layered stilted houses of Baibei Miao Village, and the mountains hold aloft a bright moon so close it seems within reach of an outstretched hand. As the southern extension of the Miaoling mountain range, Moon Mountain is the ancestral homeland where the local Miao, Shui, Dong, and other long-settled ethnic groups have lived and multiplied for generations.

"The locals have several different accounts of how Moon Mountain got its name," said Wu Shenghua, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Rongjiang County People's Congress, who grew up in the Moon Mountain area and knows the mountain's lore by heart. Among them, the most widely circulated is the "reaching out to touch the moon" account: the main peak of Moon Mountain, at 1,490 meters above sea level, is the highest point of the surrounding mountains, and the air in the mountains is clear and transparent. "Especially when the Mid-Autumn moon is full, watching the moon rise from behind you, big and bright like a jade plate, the locals say, 'Standing on the mountaintop, you can reach out and pluck the moon down.'"

Moon Mountain preserves large tracts of primeval forest, which not only nurture a wealth of species but also shaped a unique Miao branch — the Hundred-Bird-Robe branch. The hundred-bird robe is a costume unique to the Miao people of Baibei Village. Liu Zhengwen, secretary of the Baibei Village Party branch and director of the village committee, was born and raised in the mountains, growing up listening to the stories of the hundred-bird robe. "Living in Moon Mountain, in the past people mainly made a living by hunting, and the birds in the forest were the most commonly hunted prey," Liu Zhengwen said. People would pluck the birds' feathers and hang them neatly on the walls of their own homes.

The men hunted and accumulated feathers outside, while the women raised silkworms, wove cloth, and made clothes at home, and gradually the hundred-bird robe evolved into this "epic worn on the body." Liu Zhengwen said that the earliest hundred-bird robes had feathers from hunted birds sewn onto the hem, embroidered with patterns of flowers, birds, fish, and insects. "On the one hand, it was the fruit of the hunt; on the other hand, it was also the hope of being able to move freely through the great mountains like a bird."

The Miao people have a tradition of "moon dancing." "Moon dancing" means dancing the lusheng dance. "In the past, there were no electric lights in the mountains, and once it got dark it was pitch black darkness (伸手不见五指, shen shou bu jian wu zhi - "stretch, hand, not, see, five, fingers"); to dance, you had to wait until the moon was full," Liu Zhengwen recalled. The older generation always chose to dance the lusheng dance on the twelfth through the eighteenth days of each lunar month, "when the moon was roundest and brightest, shining brightly on the lusheng ground, so everyone could dance in a circle." Because only when the moonlight was bright enough could they dance, over time the name "moon dancing" came into being.

In those days, moon dancing was not only a form of entertainment but was also tightly bound to the simple beliefs of the common people. Liu Zhengwen said the elders passed down the rule: after the rice-transplanting festival and before the rice flowers bloom, one must not casually blow the lusheng or dance under the moon. "The old folks said the sound of the lusheng was too noisy, that it would blow down the rice flowers and ruin that year's harvest." So there were not many days in a year when one could dance freely under the moon, and whenever the moon was full and dancing was possible, the whole village treasured the occasion, and young men and women also took the opportunity of moon dancing to meet and fall in love.

Today, Baibei Village has long had bright streetlights, and one can dance the lusheng dance whenever one wishes, but in the hearts of many elders, only on nights with moonlight is it truly "moon dancing." When the village holds festival activities, if they happen to fall on a night of the full moon, the number of people coming to dance is always especially large. "Everyone still feels that only when the moon is full can it be called 'moon dancing,'" Liu Zhengwen said.

On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, young people of the Moon Mountain area go in groups to other people's gardens to "steal melons and vegetables," a traditional Miao and Dong folk custom called "touching autumn." Every household also pounds glutinous rice cakes — the soaked glutinous rice is steamed until fragrant, pounded until soft and sticky, rolled in soybean flour, and eaten with rice wine, celebrating a round and complete Mid-Autumn Festival.

Riding on the popularity of Guizhou's "Village Super League," Baibei Miao Village has developed its tourism industry, launching the "I Have a House on Moon Mountain" program to revitalize idle rural houses in the village. "In the past, we looked forward to the full moon because we hoped to hunt, to dance, and to have a good harvest," Liu Zhengwen said, gazing at the full moon in the sky. "Now we look forward to Mid-Autumn because we hope tourists will come and young people will return, hoping that life will get better and better. The moon is still the same moon, but our lives are far brighter than before."

Moon Mountain, Xiji, Ningxia

Moon shines on green mountains, greenery deepening

People's Daily reporter Qin Ruijie

At the Mid-Autumn Festival season, if one wants to find a place to enjoy the moon where "the mountain is high and the moon is near," Moon Mountain in Xiji County, Ningxia, is worth a visit. Driving up the winding tourist loop road, the terrain gradually rises, and upon reaching the main peak at 2,633 meters above sea level, the view suddenly opens up. On clear nights, moonlight spreads down, grass and trees are coated with frost, and the continuous mountain ridges lie quietly on the horizon like a crescent moon — this is how "Moon Mountain" got its name.

Moon Mountain is located at the border area between Xiji County and Haiyuan County, belonging to the remaining range of Liupan Mountain. The mountain body is mainly composed of sandy shale, which, after hundreds of millions of years of wind and rain erosion, has formed a unique landform of crisscrossing gullies; the Baogou spring at the southern foot flows year-round without interruption and is an important source of the Hulu River.

Moon Mountain is high in elevation, unobstructed by buildings, and has clean air; the moon seems to hang right above the summit, within reach, making it what locals call "the famous mountain of Xihaigu for moon viewing." Spring snows melt, summer nights are cool, autumn air is crisp, winter snows wrap the mountain in white — the moonlight of the four seasons each has its own charm.

Beneath the mountains and waters, the cultural lineage runs deep. The Moon Mountain area preserves the Sandishui (Three Drops of Water) site from the Neolithic Age; the stone tools, pottery shards, and bone implements unearthed there bear witness to the lives of ancient ancestors who lived by the mountain thousands of years ago. During the Qin and Han dynasties, this area was incorporated into the frontier defense system, with merchants and garrison soldiers passing along the branch routes of the ancient Silk Road; during the Northern Song Dynasty, the court built the Baichengzi ancient fort and beacon towers along the route, whose ruins still stand on the mountain ridges today, silently telling of fierce and vigorous military atmosphere (金戈铁马, jin ge tie ma - "gold, spear, iron, horse") of bygone days.

The other side of Moon Mountain is a history of ecological struggle. In the 1980s, due to overgrazing and disorderly reclamation, the ecological environment of Moon Mountain deteriorated, with sparse vegetation and severe soil erosion; rivers in the area were cut off for long periods, constraining local economic and social development.

Since 1998, Xiji County has successively implemented projects for returning farmland to forest, afforestation of barren mountains, and closing hillsides for forest cultivation. In 2013, the Moon Mountain water-conservation forest construction project was launched; by the end of 2023, 237,600 mu of water-conservation forest had been completed, with 18,247,800 seedlings of spruce, lilac, yellow rose, mountain peach, birch, and other species planted. From 2023 to 2025, relying on the "Integrated Protection and Restoration Project of Mountains, Waters, Forests, Farmlands, Lakes, Grasslands, and Sands in the Liupan Mountain Ecological Function Zone of the Yellow River Basin (Ningxia Section)," the local government has implemented 54,800 mu of water-conservation forest on Moon Mountain.

Today, the Moon Mountain area is lush with trees, the small rivers that had been cut off for years now show a trickle of flowing water again, and the ecological effects are gradually emerging. The transformation of Moon Mountain is a microcosm of Xiji's ecological construction. At present, the comprehensive vegetation coverage of grasslands across the county has reached 91 percent, and the soil and water conservation rate has reached 79.28 percent.

After turning green, the mountain has also "come alive." Relying on the tourist loop road, the local area has developed under-forest picking, specialty planting and breeding, and ecotourism. Coming to Moon Mountain at Mid-Autumn, the weather is clear with little wind and the air is transparent, providing good conditions for moon viewing. Just note that nighttime temperatures in the mountain area are low, so when climbing high to enjoy the moon, remember to bring an extra layer of clothing.

The moonlight of Moon Mountain is also connected to the daily lives of the local people. In spring plowing, they watch the moonlight to judge the weather; on autumn harvest nights, they enjoy the full moon to celebrate a bountiful year. The elders remember that in the years when lamps and electricity were scarce, moonlight was the gentlest light of the night; wandering sons away from home, whenever the moon is full, miss that bright moon above the mountaintop of their hometown. Today, ecological forest rangers patrol the mountain on moonlit nights, their flashlight beams and the moonlight together guarding this stretch of forest and mountain.

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A Mooncake as Big as a Pot Lid, Steamed to Perfection (A Culinary Journey)

By: 本报记者 曾亦辰

"Heaven, heaven, great heaven, send down rain, steamed buns as big as cart wheels." In Yongdeng County, Gansu, a nursery rhyme long circulated in the countryside hides a distinctive local delicacy of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Those who see a Yongdeng thousand-layer mooncake for the first time always take a second look. Round and plump, the large ones are even more generous than a pot lid, reaching 50 centimeters in diameter; the small ones are also as wide as a bowl's rim, with clean white crust and smoothly rounded edges. They look like big Northwestern steamed buns—how can they be called mooncakes?

But in the memories of Yongdeng people since childhood, the Mid-Autumn mooncake has always been this way—"great" in its hidden substance. No fancy molds, no delicate carvings; the plain appearance carries the unique warmth of everyday life unique to the Northwest.

Every May, the bitter-rose flowers of Kushui in Yongdeng County bloom in full splendor. The picked petals are spread out to dry and lose moisture, then finely kneaded with white sugar and sealed in jars. The sugar slowly draws out the floral fragrance. By the time the jars are opened in autumn, the sweet fragrance carries a faint hint of wine—this jar of rose jam is the source of sweetness in Yongdeng mooncakes. The fragrance of the mooncake comes from flax. Flax seeds resemble sesame seeds but are darker in color; they are roasted in a pan, then pounded one by one in a stone mortar with a stone hammer. Accompanied by the dull thudding sound, the oily fragrance gradually spreads out.

Kneading the dough is the first key step in shaping the mooncake, and it most tests one's skill. Freshly milled wheat flour is mixed with a little water, kneaded repeatedly and beaten forcefully, worked over and over until smooth and thorough—until the dough is supple and fine, of moderate softness and firmness, neither sticking to the hands nor collapsing under the filling.

Even more exquisite is the measure of "applying ash." "Applying ash" is the local term for adding alkali: the inner layers of the crust have a slightly stronger alkali content, while the outer crust has a weaker one. Thus the steamed mooncake has an outer skin that is clean and refreshing, free of any off-color, while the interior is fluffy and soft, with fine texture and distinct layers.

The dough, kneaded the night before and fully fermented, is mixed with alkali the next morning, divided into dough pieces of uniform size, and each rolled into a round wrapper, following the principle of "slightly thinner at the edges, slightly thicker at the center." Then the stacking of the cake formally begins. Thin round wrappers are laid out one by one, as if carefully clothing the Mid-Autumn full moon in layer upon layer.

The thousand-layer mooncake—every layer has its own flavor. The first layer is thinly brushed with rich flaxseed oil and sprinkled with finely ground flax, laying down a mellow aromatic base; the second layer is spread evenly with turmeric, dyeing it a warm golden yellow; the third layer is sprinkled with red yeast rice, adding a bright vermilion hue. Then a layer of greenish-brown bitter bean (bitter vetch) is spread, bringing the freshness of vegetation into the dough; the rose jam must be spread evenly, making the sweet fragrance ever more lingering; flax and white sesame are stacked on another layer, adding a toasty aroma; finally, a layer of turmeric closes it off. Colors set off one another, aromas progress in layers—rich in variety yet never chaotic.

Once all the layers are stacked, another large, intact round wrapper is taken to wrap the entire stack of layers tightly and gather it together, carefully pinching the edges shut and shaping it neatly—and the mooncake takes form. Unlike common baked mooncakes, the Yongdeng thousand-layer mooncake is a Mid-Autumn flavor achieved through steaming. The shaped mooncake blank is gently placed into the steamer basket of a large iron pot lined with a cloth, water is added in full, the lid is closed tightly, first brought to steam over high heat, then simmered slowly over low heat—nearly two full hours of steaming are needed to achieve the best texture.

When the lid is lifted, hot steam rushes to the face. As the knife cuts down, the layers emerge: the rosy red of red yeast rice, the warm yellow of turmeric, the green of bitter bean—layer upon layer unfurling and blooming in succession, with clear and orderly grain, rugged yet not lacking in delicacy. The crust is soft, the interlayers moist and flavorful; all the flavors settle through slow steaming over water vapor, becoming ever more mellow and lingering, soft on the palate with a sweet aftertaste.

The distinctive craftsmanship carries on the culinary lineage of the thousand-year Silk Road. Yongdeng was a key route on the Silk Road and an important town for military agricultural garrisons in the Han Dynasty. According to tradition, the technique of making Western-Region flatbread (hubing) traveled eastward with merchant caravans to this place, gradually meshing with local farming and dietary customs, improving generation after generation, and ultimately taking root and enduring to this day.

Today, Hongcheng Town in Yongdeng County is home to more than 30 mooncake processing workshops—this is the concentrated production area for thousand-layer mooncakes. Hongcheng mooncakes travel out of the small town through various online and offline channels, becoming an important force in increasing farmers' incomes.

This square of thousand-layer rustic mooncake is the longing of Yongdeng people for the whole year. In the morning, cut a piece and pair it with a bowl of rice water or clear tea—refreshing and cutting through grease; at noon, break off a few pieces and enjoy them with simple home dishes, satisfying enough to stave off hunger (适口充饥, shi kou chong ji - "fit, mouth, fill, hunger"); at night, the whole family sits together, sharing a mooncake, chatting about everyday matters and admiring the bright moon—comfortable and content. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Yongdeng, every household places a large mooncake at the center of the offering table, expressing the beautiful hope of "both people and moon at their fullest."

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Page editors: Meng Yang, Tang Zhongke, Xu Yang

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Guizhou: Innovative "Visual Narrative + Land Art" Model Nurtures Rural Cultural Roots, Explores New Paths for Mountain Tourism Development

In the golden autumn of September, the fertile fields gleam with gold. On September 28, the 2026 Colorful Guizhou · 19th China Original Ecological International Photography Exhibition and the first "Colorful Guizhou Land Art Season" event will open in Hongjiang Village, Libo County, Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province. The event adopts the innovative expression model of "visual narrative + land art," moving the exhibition hall into the village, and through a cultural and artistic activity that takes the land as its carrier, the countryside as its core, art as its medium, and light and shadow as its narrative, it brings together natural landscapes, ethnic cultural lineages, and rural life into merging into a single whole (融为一体, rong wei yi ti - "melt, into, one, body"), collectively promoting Guizhou Province's literature and art to take deeper root in the countryside at the practical level and empower the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.

This event has invited well-known domestic and international artists and farmer painters from various parts of Guizhou. Relying on Hongjiang Village's natural ecology, rural cultural lineage, and village elegance, through multiple forms such as university-enterprise joint creation and villager co-creation, a batch of land art works will be created and installed in Hongjiang, injecting artistic vitality into the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas. In addition to unveiling these works during the opening ceremony, the event will also carry out a series of activities including the third Hongjiang Forum, the photography exhibition's "roundtable exchange dialogue," an AI imaging technology frontier salon, and a "village" trend market. Following the integrated approach of academic research, literary and artistic creation, communication and promotion, and industrial integration, it will provide a new interpretation for "photography art + land art."

Art beautifies    the countryside is renewed

Activating the endogenous driving force of traditional villages through the Land Art Season

Hongjiang Village is hidden in the folds of the mountains of Libo County. Standing at the village entrance, karst peak clusters surround the entire village. At the foot of the mountains, golden rice paddies stretch in contiguous patches. Residences with white walls and green tiles are arranged in staggered rows along the slopes, and the artistic murals on the walls complement the village's texture beautifully. Under the setting sun, wisps of cooking smoke rise gently from between the roof tiles, bathing the entire village in a soft warm glow and spreading a lingering pastoral charm.

Ten years ago, the village presented a completely different scene: of the more than 300 households in the village, over two-thirds of the able-bodied young adults had gone out to work, more than 100 stilt-style old houses were left without care and gradually collapsing, and the village collective economy's annual income was only a little over 20,000 yuan.

The village's transformation originated from the artistic reconstruction of idle resources. Since 2017, Hongjiang Village has introduced artists from across the country to participate in village revitalization and artistic rural construction, strictly following the "four-original principles" — original structure reinforcement, original materials reuse, original craftsmanship revival, and original function upgrading. While preserving the original wooden frames and rammed earth walls, it has endowed idle old houses with new functions such as artistic creation, exhibition and exchange, and research and study practice, turning century-old houses into carriers of rural art.

A batch of distinctive art spaces such as "Tuyu Nanju," "Yanxi Academy," and "Laba Commune" have taken root one after another, and idle old houses have regained their luster. As of now, Hongjiang Village has attracted more than 100 artists to settle in, revitalized 48 old and dilapidated houses, built 23 art and cultural creativity studios and 12 art development spaces. The formerly being ignored or neglected by everyone (无人问津, wu ren wen jin - "no, person, ask, approach") "hollow village" has gradually grown into a land art settlement with initial international influence.

In the wilderness of Hongjiang Village, the way land art works take root is simple yet moving. Beside old houses, amid rice paddies, at the corners of paths, on old walls along the road, there are stones piled into embankments, wood built into houses, straw returned to the fields, and dyed cloth forming rhythms — each is an artistic expression that fits this land: land art is a series of exhibits, and even more so, scenes of the villagers' daily lives.

After a decade of "artistic rural construction," Hongjiang Village has gotten better and better. The village has organized an old-house restoration team, which has accumulated labor income of over 5 million yuan through restoring old houses. Young people who had gone out to work have gradually returned to the village, opening homestays, operating art spaces, and participating in research and study services, achieving employment at their doorstep. As of now, the village collective economy's annual income is stably maintained at over 500,000 yuan, with an average of nearly 20,000 person-visits per year for research and study and artistic sketching in the village.

Culture adorns the ancient village    art settles in mountain dwellings

Opening a new life of dwelling through the upgrading of mountain residence formats

Hongjiang Village's vivid practice of activating rural resources through land art, empowering rural development, and enabling the people to genuinely increase income and become prosperous is a vivid microcosm of the development of Guizhou's mountain residence industry.

Amid the mountains of Guizhou, the beauty of the natural land and the lineage of rural culture are continuously being transformed into an inexhaustible driving force for the development of the mountain residence industry, pushing Guizhou's cultural tourism formats to shift from the sightseeing and check-in of "come and see it once" to the life experience of "stay and immerse yourself."

Based on its mountain-specific endowments, Guizhou focuses on the three major elements of resources, tourists, and services, vigorously developing the mountain residence industry. All parts of the province adhere to the principle of ecological priority, revitalize idle rural housing resources, and develop mountain dwelling formats with distinctive local characteristics. Tourists stay in mountain houses, enjoy the scenery, experience intangible cultural heritage handicrafts, and immersively feel a lifestyle of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature.

A batch of mountain residence clusters combining artistic texture with local characteristics are rapidly rising, becoming art communities scattered across the land of Guizhou: the Wanfenglin homestay cluster built by the Qianxinan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture gathers 306 homestays within a 20-square-kilometer core area, including 3 national first-class homestays, with architecture complementing each other beautifully (相映成趣, xiang ying cheng qu - "mutually, reflect, become, interest") with the karst peak forest; Xiuwen County deeply explores the cultural heritage of Yangming, launching the "Yangming Mountain Dwelling" cultural residence brand, allowing humanistic thought and landscape scenery to deeply blend; Kaiyang County relies on its selenium-rich agricultural resources to build a "Selenium-rich Mountain Dwelling" wellness residence.

Industrial scale and benefits to the people are emerging simultaneously. As of the end of 2025, the province has approximately 13,000 homestay business entities and 638 graded tourist homestays. 82% of rural homestays have revitalized idle rural assets, cumulatively driving employment for about 100,000 people and benefiting nearly 160,000 farming households.

At the end of 2025, Guizhou Province issued the "Overall Plan for Accelerating the Development of Guizhou's Residence Industry," proposing to vigorously develop the residence industry, build a residence living environment and a new way of beautiful life that is suitable for tourism and habitation, shared by hosts and guests, and where those near are pleased and those far are attracted, and help create the new "Colorful Guizhou" cultural tourism brand.

Now, residing in Guizhou, one can pound glutinous rice cakes, learn batik, make silver ornaments, and experience intangible cultural heritage culture; one can hike, wade upstream, experience forest wellness, and explore natural art. Tourists have changed from "passers-by" to "residents." In 2025, the number of people residing in Guizhou for more than 15 days reached 2.38 million person-visits. With the support of artistic installation, mountain residence has truly become a pillar industry for increasing people's income.

Colorful life    sharing beauty and prosperity together

Depicting a new picture of comprehensive regional integration and development through pluralistic symbiosis

Colorful Guizhou, renowned as the "Province of Parks" and the "Cultural Archipelago," is itself a masterpiece of land art.

As the only mountainous province in the country without plains to support it, 92.5% of Guizhou's land area is mountains and hills. The fully covered karst peak forests, pristine mountain forests, and river valleys and streams constitute a natural aesthetic foundation for land art. Guizhou currently has 757 traditional Chinese villages, accounting for 9.3% of the national total; and 312 ethnic minority characteristic villages, ranking first in the country in number. Eighteen long-settled ethnic groups live here in a pattern of large mixed habitation and small concentrated settlements, creating a colorful cultural pattern of "three li apart, different customs; five li apart, different practices; minor festivals every day, major festivals every 36th and 9th day," converging into a magnificent symphony flowing across the land.

Why has Guizhou become so popular in recent years? The answer lies deep in the countryside: profound historical culture, rich red culture, and colorful ethnic culture met the solid foundation laid by the battle against poverty — roads were opened, networks were connected, and the public cultural service system was built. Guizhou insists on sports setting the stage, culture taking the lead, and tourism providing empowerment, and cultural IPs imbued with the warmth of everyday life have "grown" out of the countryside one after another: the basketball game at Taipan Village's New Rice Festival produced the "Village BA," Rongjiang County's football matches kicked off the "Village Super League," the country paths of Sandu Shui Duan Festival produced the "Village Marathon," the Miao and Dong villages of Kaili City produced the "Village T," and the Yi ethnic town of Xingyi City danced out the "Village Dance"... The "village-branded" IP matrix has gradually become a beautiful calling card of Guizhou, allowing cultural confidence rooted in the countryside and vigorous vitality to continue to burst forth. Recently, the "Fingerprints of the Earth" concert in Dafang County, Bijie City, has once again gone viral.

In building the new "Colorful Guizhou" cultural tourism brand, Guizhou has explored a pluralistic co-governance pattern of "government guidance, the masses as masters, market operation, and social participation," forming a two-way empowerment effect in which culture empowers industry and industry feeds back into culture. As of the end of 2025, the "Village Super League" has driven tourism revenue of nearly 30 billion yuan in Rongjiang County, and the "Village Marathon" of Sandu Shui Autonomous County has cumulatively attracted 16.78 million tourist visits, achieving comprehensive tourism revenue of 15.5 billion yuan. Along with the rising heat of cultural tourism, agricultural specialty products have taken advantage of the "Guizhou goods going out of the mountains" initiative to be sold overseas, vacant old houses have been transformed into boutique homestays, and industrial vitality continues to be released.

From the land art settlement of Hongjiang Village, to the mountain residence clusters spread across the province, to the "village-branded" cultural phenomenon with universal participation, Guizhou takes the countryside as its root, culture as its core, and art as its medium, promoting the deep integrated development of culture and tourism, making the landscapes more charming, culture warmer, and life more colorful, depicting a vivid picture of "colorful life · sharing beauty and prosperity together" (美美与共, mei mei yu gong - "beautiful, beautiful, with, share"), and injecting lasting endogenous driving force into building Guizhou into a culturally strong province and a strong tourism province.

Data source: Publicity Department of the CPC Guizhou Provincial Committee

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Autumn Charm of the Land · Art and the Mind

"People of today do not see the moon of ancient times, yet the moon of today once shone upon the ancients." A bright full moon stirs a thousand years of longing. People pour their admiration for beautiful scenes and fine moments, their reverie over ancient myths, and their hopes for family reunion into the tip of the brush, carve them into wood and stone, and knead them into clay — these works of art together constitute the unique romantic mood of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Today, this page invites experts and scholars to step together with our readers into the long river of art, and, in the immersion of beauty, to gaze from afar at those who appreciated the moon a thousand years ago, and to feel the endless, continuous life or development (生生不息, sheng sheng bu xi - "birth, birth, not, cease") of cultural lineage transmission and the profound sentiment of guarding home and country.

—Editor

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The Mid-Autumn Moon in Paintings, Feelings for Family and Country in Brushstrokes

By: 顾 平

Another year, the autumn wind rises; cassia shadows sway, and clear moonlight fills the courtyard. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, that bright moon suspended in the vault of heaven is not merely a planet in the astronomical sense, but a lucid spiritual symbol in the cultural psychology of the Chinese people. As the autumn moon is about to become full, sitting alone by the window, I cannot help but think of the moonlight hidden within paintings—what has settled in brush, ink, and pigment is the Chinese people's unique will to life and feelings for family and country.

The moon, in the spiritual world of the Chinese people, was initially mysterious and romantic. People of the Han dynasty looked up at the starry sky and regarded the moon as a spiritual realm accompanied by deities and auspicious omens. In the Han dynasty stone relief Chang'e Flying to the Moon collected in the Nanyang Han Painting Hall in Henan, Chang'e, with a human head and serpent body, soars amid clouds and vapors, while the silhouette of a toad is faintly visible within the round moon. This simple longing for the lunar palace not only carried the ancestors' yearning for the vast heavens, but also reflected their quest for eternal life.

By the Song dynasty, the moon had acquired "sentiment" in painting. Scholars and literati (文人墨客, wen ren mo ke - "literary, person, ink, guest") expressed their feelings toward the moon, depicting personal sentiments in the fusion of nature and the soul. Ma Yuan once took the moon as his theme and created multiple paintings. In his Raising the Cup to Invite the Moon, a recluse sits alone under the shade of a pine gazing at the moon; the folds of his robes are simple and sparse, yet his expression bears a tranquility that transcends the mundane world. With a "corner" scene, Ma Yuan rendered the boundless moonlight—a posture of placing oneself between heaven and earth, the longing of refined scholars for inner peace, and a visual response to the eternal question, "When did the bright moon first appear? Raising my cup, I ask the blue sky." The moon became a pure land where people could settle their hearts.

In the moonlight of the Mid-Autumn Festival, there is not only the elegance of the literati, but also the grandeur of family and country. Shen Zhou's Ming dynasty Appreciating the Moon at the Mid-Autumn Festival in Youzhu Villa presents a different scene. In the painting, Shen Zhou sits facing his friends, appreciating the moon; bamboo shadows sway, and the moonlight is like silver. On the scroll, he left a long inscription: "In youth I did not distinguish the Mid-Autumn moon, seeing it as no different from ordinary times. In old age I am especially attached to the moon, and in loving the moon I should also love the festival..." In youth he was utterly unaware of the moon, yet in old age he is attached to it—this is clearly using the moonlight to write about life, to write the desolation of fleeting time that cannot be detained and old friends gradually fading away, and also to write the stubborn attachment deep in his heart to reunion and mutual companionship. This long scroll is the sedimentation of brotherly affection through the passage of years, and also the painter's deep retrospective gaze upon his native garden, old friends, and cultural roots. Moonlight became a bridge connecting people to the past and the present.

Since the modern era, in paintings related to the Mid-Autumn moon, "family and country" has acquired a more concrete and profound connotation. Feng Zikai's Raising My Head to Look at the Bright Moon, Lowering My Head to Think of My Hometown contains no grand narrative—only two people standing before a railing, looking up at the moon. With a compassionate heart, Feng Zikai brought the age-old theme of "homesickness" down to specific individuals. Hao Boyi's print Night of the Hometown, Jiang Yue's print Mid-Autumn Festival, and others likewise blend deep nostalgia into poetic expression, using the moonlight to convey attachment to one's native soil. That round moon, like a warm lamp, illuminates the road home for travelers, becoming the softest yet most resilient bond between family and country.

At the time when ten thousand families reunite, there is always a group of people silently guarding the peace of family and country. This spirit of sacrificing the small family for the greater whole adds further weight to the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the early 1960s, printmaker Zhao Zongzao went to Zhoushan, Zhejiang, to gather creative material, and happened to arrive at the Mid-Autumn Festival. He had intended to climb high and gaze at the moon, but unexpectedly the moonlight was hidden between sea and sky, and only the bright beams of coastal defense searchlights were visible. At that moment, an image emerged in his mind: on a sea island, a soldier stands guard in silence, a bright full moon hangs in the sky, and the beam of a searchlight cuts through the night. From this, Zhao Zongzao created the print Mid-Autumn Festival, paying tribute to the frontier soldiers who guard the maritime border and protect the lights of ten thousand households. Nearly sixty years later, printmaker Xiao Yingchuan likewise focused on the coastal defense theme, creating The Fifteenth's Moon. In the painting, a bright moon hangs high in the blue night curtain, and clear moonlight falls upon the naval vessels, tranquil and solemn; the moving sentiment of "one family not reunited, ten thousand families reunited" quietly flows within the moonlight.

Today, as a new wave of lunar exploration fervor rises globally, the Mid-Autumn moon in paintings has gained new connotations and new expressions, interpreting the lunar exploration spirit of "chasing dreams, daring to explore, coordinating in tackling difficulties, and cooperating for win-win outcomes." Works such as Wang Fa's Chinese painting Lunar Landing and Lin Peisen's Chinese painting Milestone on the Far Side of the Moon both focus on the thousand-year dream of lunar exploration, using ink and wash to display the emptiness and vastness of the cosmos, and incorporating traditional Chinese painting techniques into the depiction of modern spacecraft, giving the works a beauty that combines art and science. The moon is no longer merely a vessel for the ancients' nostalgia, but has become a milestone in the Chinese nation's exploration of deep space. The lofty aspirations of a nation made strong through science and technology, and the national confidence of looking up at the stars while being practical and down-to-earth (脚踏实地, jiao ta shi di - "foot, step on, solid, ground"), are engraved and passed down within the moonlight of brush and pigment.

The history of fine art is not only a history of the evolution of artistic styles, but also a history of the national soul. That bright moon in the paintings, carrying the sentiment of the Mid-Autumn Festival, reflects the Chinese nation's reverence for nature, attachment to native soil, longing for reunion, and prayer for the prosperity of the country. Beneath this clear moonlight, may every person find their own spiritual home in the world of art, and express the feelings for family and country within their hearts.

(The author is a professor at Nanjing University of the Arts)

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《中秋帖》见证文化记忆“重圆”

By: 虞晓勇

A bright moon hangs in the sky, and people on earth enjoy reunion — the Mid-Autumn Festival has come again. Among the classic calligraphic works named after "Mid-Autumn," the most familiar to people is none other than the Mid-Autumn Letter (Mid-Autumn Letter) traditionally attributed to Wang Xianzhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (see illustration).Although the content of this letter has no direct connection with the Mid-Autumn Festival, the story of its transmission has become a vivid footnote to the gathering and continuation of a thousand-year cultural lineage, and a precious testimony to the "reunion" of cultural memory.

The Mid-Autumn Letter is written in running-cursive script, without a signature, comprising 3 lines and 22 characters in total: "Mid-Autumn, no longer able, not returning, for this is most distressing, how to reflect, yet how do the victorious ones, Qing and others, the great army." Between characters, running and cursive scripts are mixed, connected by trailing threads, free and unrestrained. Zhang Huaiguan of the Tang Dynasty once commented on Wang Xianzhi in his Calligraphy Discussions: "Zijing, with outstanding talent and far-reaching insight, beyond running and cursive scripts, opened yet another door." Wang Xianzhi broke the boundary between running script and cursive script, fusing both into a single sheet, done casually, with endless transformations. For instance, the character "still" in the Mid-Autumn Letter is written in running script above and cursive below.This manner of writing links strokes above and below, with flowing, graceful brush intent, "like swift and smooth movement of brushstrokes (风行雨散, feng xing yu san - "wind, move; rain, scatter"), moistening and blooming," and is honored as "one-stroke calligraphy."

The text of the Mid-Autumn Letter is difficult to decipher, not because the language of the medieval period is archaic, but because the content of the text was once fragmented. What people see today as the Mid-Autumn Letter is generally regarded by the scholarly community as an abridged version of Wang Xianzhi's Twelfth Month Letter, or alternatively called a selected-character copy. According to records, the Twelfth Month Letter was originally an heirloom of the Su Yijian family in the Northern Song Dynasty, and later changed hands until Mi Fu acquired it in exchange for calligraphy, paintings, and treasured playthings. Its full text reads: "In the twelfth month, has the harvest been cut? Mid-Autumn, no longer able, not returning, not yet returned, grieving over principle, for this is most distressing, how to reflect? Yet how do the victorious ones, Qing and others, Qing and others, the great army." This overlaps with the content of the Mid-Autumn Letter. Mi Fu treasured the Twelfth Month Letter greatly, once saying of it: "The brush moves like a fire-tong stirring ashes, connected without beginning or end, as if careless — this is what is called one-stroke calligraphy; under heaven, it is Zijing's first letter." It can be seen that the Twelfth Month Letter and the Mid-Autumn Letter are also quite similar in style. Moreover, the Mid-Autumn Letter is written on bamboo paper that appeared only after the late Tang and Five Dynasties, with rich, rounded, and sinuous brush intent, as if written with the loose-tufted brush of the Tang-Song period. Combining this with Mi Fu's extant works, Mr. Qi Gong believed that "the Mid-Autumn being a Mi copy is now a settled verdict." That is to say, while Mi Fu treasured the Twelfth Month Letter, he also made his own selected-character copy. A single ancient letter thus began a new life: the true original gradually receded, the copy carried on the flame, and the lineage of the calligraphic way continued unbroken through such cycles of parting and reunion.

By the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong housed the Mid-Autumn Letter together with Wang Xizhi's Sunny Snow After a Quick Snowfall Letter and Wang Xun's Boyuan Letter in the Hall of Three Rarities, praising them as "supreme treasures." Although the content of the Mid-Autumn Letter has no direct bearing on the Mid-Autumn Festival, Emperor Qianlong for many consecutive years took this letter as the theme on the Mid-Autumn Festival, engaging in poetry, prose, calligraphy, and painting activities together with his literary officials. After the abdication of the Qing emperor, this letter and the Boyuan Letter were carried out of the palace and came into the possession of Guo Baochang and his son Guo Zhaojun. Pressed by financial hardship, Guo Zhaojun pawned the two letters, which were later re-pledged to a foreign bank in Hong Kong. When the pawn period was about to expire, the original holder was unable to redeem them, and foreign buyers, hearing the news, were eagerly wanting to buy something (跃跃欲购, yue yue yu gou - "leaping, leaping; desire, purchase"), placing the national treasures in a situation of extreme urgency or imminent danger (危在旦夕, wei zai dan xi - "danger, exist; dawn, evening"). Upon hearing the news, Premier Zhou Enlai immediately instructed the relevant departments to purchase the two letters back at a heavy price, despite the extremely tight foreign exchange reserves of the state, and to have them housed in the Palace Museum. The scattered national treasures "coming home" exactly matched the wish for reunion that the Mid-Autumn Festival embodies.

"Think back to last year's scene in the toad palace, not a single hair's breadth was lacking." The ancients used the fullness of the bright moon to express their prayer for peace under heaven for ten thousand generations. When we look out over the long river of Chinese culture, we find that this fullness also originates from the transmission and continuation of the literary heart.

(The author is a professor at the School of Arts and Media, Beijing Normal University)

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The Aesthetics of Patterns on Mooncakes

By: 王来华

Mr. Qiu Pangtong once said in his History of Chinese Pastries: "The appearance of the mooncake was an important event in the history of pastry-making." The mooncake is both a Mid-Autumn Festival gift exchanged between relatives and friends, and a festive food that brings joy the moment it is eaten. The rich and varied (丰富多彩, feng fu duo cai - "abundant, colorful") patterns on mooncakes harbor the ancients' romantic imagination of the moon and their beautiful wishes for family and country, and embody the splendid spirit of Chinese aesthetics.

The shaping of mooncake patterns relies mainly on various types of mooncake molds. In olden times, there were many specialized mooncake molds, and even more molds that were also used to make mooncakes. The designers and carvers of traditional mooncake molds devoted all their effort to exquisite composition and smooth lines. In 1972, a Tang Dynasty mooncake-style pastry unearthed from Tomb No. 230 at Astana in Turpan, Xinjiang, was made by molding, pressing, and baking. Its front face features an eight-petal lotus pattern at the center, surrounded by linked-pearl patterns and chrysanthemum-petal patterns, which together form the baoxiang flower pattern symbolizing wealth, auspiciousness, sanctity, and beauty. The exquisite patterns reflect the superb pastry-making skills of the time.

Among ancient mooncake patterns, the more common and typical theme is that of the moon palace. Craftsmen combined images such as Chang'e, the jade rabbit, and the osmanthus tree in different forms, employing rich artistic techniques to express them—some pursuing realism and concreteness, others pursuing freehand expression, often with deliberate exaggeration and distortion. Some patterns are richer in the charm of daily life; for example, the "Moon Palace Immortal Gathering" pattern depicts the romantic scene of lovers meeting, with a relatively strong narrative quality that invites careful appreciation.

The fret pattern is also one of the mooncake patterns well known to the public, and it is mostly used as a border decoration and background pattern, appearing in the form of a "single continuous ring connected by one stroke." This pattern can be traced back to the painted pottery of the Majiayao culture in the late Neolithic period, and evolved during the Ming and Qing dynasties into an aesthetic element within a cross-material decorative system. The fret pattern is simple in form, neat and flowing, displaying a beauty of rigor, plainness, and tranquility. In traditional mooncake patterns, the fret pattern is often endowed with the auspicious meaning of "wealth without end," giving rise to multiple wishes of continuous and unending (连绵不断, lian mian bu duan - "continuous, connected, not, broken") prosperity, flourishing descendants, and enduring good fortune.

Also full of people's beautiful blessings are the various mooncake patterns transformed from images of animals and plants. For example, the bat pattern signifies abundant good fortune, the dragon-and-phoenix pattern symbolizes wealth and harmony, and the clustered-flower pattern represents auspiciousness and well-being... Craftsmen balance multiple relationships such as symmetry and irregularity, spacing and continuity, sparseness and overlap, and diversity and unity, arranging these patterns on the small surface of the cake, which not only strengthens the artistic effect of the pastry but also enhances its cultural refinement.

Today, many traditional mooncake patterns remain deeply loved by the people and are passed down from generation to generation (代代相传, dai dai xiang chuan - "generation, generation, mutually, pass") in seasonal foods. At the same time, some mooncake patterns that integrate modern aesthetics are also constantly emerging. For example, some jade rabbit pattern designs feature formal variations and abstract expressiveness, containing both clever ideas connected to traditional Mid-Autumn Festival culture and a novel and distinctive aesthetic, giving the ancient imagery a brand-new expression.

The moon is full, the cake is round, and family and country share reunion. Whether in ancient or modern times, mooncake pattern design has always revolved around the cultural core of the Mid-Autumn Festival. When we pick up a mooncake, what we savor is not only its sweet filling, but also the flavor of reunion.

(The author is a researcher at the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences)

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The Lovable Lord Rabbit

By: 王连海

When I was a child celebrating the Mid-Autumn Festival, what I most looked forward to and paid most attention to was not eating mooncakes or fruits, but admiring the Lord Rabbit. At that time, strolling through the streets of Beijing, one could see Lord Rabbit stalls everywhere. Those Lord Rabbits, draped in red robes, clad in golden armor, riding yellow tigers, their bright colors rendered the festive joy and happiness of the holiday, accompanying the childhood of generation after generation, and even today they remain active in people's sight.

The Lord Rabbit is a representative folk arts and crafts of Beijing, originally a seasonal item of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and its origin is said to be related to the folk custom of moon worship during the Mid-Autumn Festival. As early as the Han Dynasty, the myth of a rabbit on the moon had already appeared. One version holds that the rabbit was originally the medicine-pounding envoy before the Queen Mother of the West, following her into the Moon Palace; the Queen Mother of the West became the moon goddess, and the rabbit also became the rabbit god, yet it continued to be responsible for pounding medicine. The myth of the Jade Rabbit pounding medicine, together with legends such as Chang'e flying to the moon and Wu Gang cutting the cassia tree, jointly constitute a rich and unique Chinese lunar mythology system. In the ninth year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1530), the emperor ordered the construction of the Altar of the Moon in Beijing and designated the autumn equinox day for offering sacrifices to the moon goddess. This official measure promoted the flourishing of the folk custom of moon worship, from which the Lord Rabbit emerged and developed into a "disaster-warding deity" worshipped by the people and a toy beloved by children.

The typical image of the Lord Rabbit is a rabbit head on a human body, with two upright ears protruding from the head, a white face, raised eyebrows, bright and spirited eyes (两眼炯炯有神, liang yan jong jong you shen - "two eyes, bright, have spirit"), and a bright red three-petal mouth always pursed, with a serene expression; the body is draped in golden helmet and golden armor, in a posture of pounding medicine; there are forms riding elephants, qilins, tigers, and so on, with different mounts representing different auspicious meanings. The more elaborate Lord Rabbits have a single backrest flag propped up behind them. With the development of the times, the craftsmen who make Lord Rabbits have continuously improved the forms and added content according to public demand, giving rise to varied and diverse (丰富多彩, feng fu duo cai - "rich, abundant; many, colorful") varieties and styles such as the "clacking-mouth Lord Rabbit," the "shoulder-pole-carrying Lord Rabbit," and the "porter Lord Rabbit."

Making a Lord Rabbit is a fine craft. Most Lord Rabbits are "painted clay sculptures," and a very few are made of sewn cloth or paper pasted over a frame. A clay-sculpted Lord Rabbit must go through multiple processes such as mixing clay, making the mold blank, making the mold, pressing the blank, applying the base coat, painting, and applying a protective glaze, and each process is very complex. The design of the Lord Rabbit emphasizes symmetry and balance, and its painting craftsmanship is exquisite, with the saying "three parts sculpture, seven parts painting," giving it extremely high aesthetic value. Lao She once praised the Lord Rabbit in Four Generations Under One Roof, saying, "This small sculpted piece plants the seed of beauty in the hearts of countless children."

Today, the Lord Rabbit, which has been passed down for more than 400 years, has gradually freed itself from the seasonal constraints of the Mid-Autumn Festival and can be seen in all four seasons, and its sphere of dissemination has also continued to expand, spreading to Tianjin, Hebei, Jiangsu, and other places. Facing the needs of the new era, some craftsmen have incorporated modern technology and new materials into their creations, and Lord Rabbits made of different materials such as soft clay, ceramics, and resin have appeared one after another. Some craftsmen have also absorbed the character design features of animated films to make cartoon Lord Rabbits; drawing on the artistic characteristics of traditional clay dolls, they have made doll-shaped Lord Rabbits, making the Lord Rabbit even more lovely and charming (可喜可爱, ke xi ke ai - "can, be happy; can, be loved").

With the development of science and technology, the Moon Palace is no longer mysterious to people, but people's deep affection for the moon and the Jade Rabbit has never diminished. When the "Yutu" rover carried a thousand years of reverie to visit the moon, the Lord Rabbit in the streets and alleys, with its ancient charm and new attire, connects the sentiments of ancient and modern times, guarding the human world's reunion every year (岁岁团圆, sui sui tuan yuan - "year, year; reunion, circle").

(The author is an associate researcher at the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University)

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Painting Branches Full of Fragrance

By: 丁朝虹

"Plum blossoms would surely envy it, chrysanthemums should feel ashamed. Where the painted railings open, it crowns the Mid-Autumn season." Thus did Li Qingzhao of the Song Dynasty praise the unique charm of the osmanthus flower at the Mid-Autumn Festival. The coincidence of the natural season, the alignment of cultural connotations, and the fusion of folk customs have all given osmanthus a deep association with the Mid-Autumn Festival, making it an important cultural image of this season and providing rich creative inspiration for painters of successive dynasties.

As early as the Han Dynasty, the Huainanzi already contained the record that "there is a cassia tree in the moon," which merged with the myth of Chang'e flying to the moon and gave rise to the legend of "Wu Gang cutting the cassia tree." Although what Wu Gang cut was a cassia tree—which healed itself with each stroke of the axe, rather than an osmanthus tree—after the widespread cultivation of osmanthus trees began in the Tang and Song Dynasties, the "cassia" in the moon gradually came to be regarded as the osmanthus tree, and its significance under the painter's brush grew ever richer.

Because "gui" (桂, osmanthus) is homophonous with "gui" (贵, nobility/wealth), people believe that osmanthus can bring good fortune and riches. The time when osmanthus blooms also coincides with the ancient annual release of provincial examination results, and thus developed the allusion of achieving success in imperial examinations (蟾宫折桂, chan gong zhe gui - "toad, palace, break, osmanthus"), signifying passing the imperial examinations with one's name on the golden list. Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty focused on this in his Chang'e Holding an Osmanthus Branch, in which he did not place Chang'e beneath an osmanthus tree but instead had her hold an osmanthus branch in her hand, and inscribed his own verse: "Naturally Chang'e loves talented scholars, and plucks the osmanthus from the highest branch for them." His contemporary Shen Zhou's Plucking the Osmanthus Branch depicted a single osmanthus branch, expressing the aspiration for success in the imperial examinations. From the osmanthus tree to the osmanthus branch, the osmanthus began to be infused with worldly human hopes.

The elegant and refined osmanthus was often endowed by literati with noble and pure qualities. Beginning in the Yuan Dynasty, many painters made the osmanthus their protagonist, meticulously depicting its form, bearing, and grace. In the album Painting of a Flower Basket by Qian Xuan of the Yuan Dynasty, one page depicts two porcelain jars, one holding golden osmanthus and the other red osmanthus, with a ruyi-shaped osmanthus branch folded in three segments placed atop them, extending to the right, full of vitality. Yun Shouping of the Qing Dynasty, in his Osmanthus from the Album of Flower Paintings (see illustration), also painted one branch each of golden and red osmanthus, the two flower colors echoing each other amid a vast expanse of green leaves, elegant and moving. These osmanthus blossoms stepped out of the celestial pavilions and examination halls to become objects of appreciation on the desk, embodying the aspirations and interests of the literati.

If one wishes to echo the festive theme, it seems one essential thing is still missing—the fragrance. After all, traditional Chinese festivals mostly carry olfactory memories: the Dragon Boat Festival has the scent of mugwort, the Double Ninth Festival has the scent of chrysanthemums, and the Mid-Autumn Festival has the scent of osmanthus. For the osmanthus, its sweet fragrance is endowed with cultural associations of sweetness and happiness, precisely matching the cultural implication of the Mid-Autumn Festival's "reunion of people and moon in fullness." But how can one paint the fragrance of osmanthus?

Chen Shizeng's Osmanthus and Wine was praised by Qi Baishi as "painting flower branches that fill the paper with fragrance." The enormous osmanthus branch occupies two-thirds of the composition, its dripping ink seemingly pressing toward the viewer, squeezing the branch and the rim of the wine jar until they nearly touch, so that for a moment one cannot tell whether the blossoms have fallen into the wine or the wine's vapors have risen to perfume the flower tips. What truly evokes the fragrance is the sparsely colored wine jar in the lower left corner of the painting; its presence awakens the senses of smell and taste before the eyes, and thus the fragrance spreads out from the painting.

The painter's creative intent is hidden in the inscription: "Today, carrying osmanthus and wine together, it is no longer like the wanderings of youth." This adapts the famous line of Liu Guo of the Song Dynasty: "Wanting to buy osmanthus and carry wine together, it is no longer like the wanderings of youth." The change from "wanting to buy" to "today" was deliberate on Master Shizeng's part, for this painting was made to congratulate his old friend Yao Hua on the opening of his Guizhou cuisine restaurant, at the time of the Mid-Autumn Festival of the xinyou year (1921). "Today" means that from now on, one may at any time enjoy fine wine and meet old friends in this place—though it is not like the "wanderings of youth," is it not still a delight! The youthful spirit of plucking the osmanthus branch is long past; what the painting depicts is precisely life beyond plucking the osmanthus—not the elation of passing the examinations, but the joy of old friends reuniting. The old friend's Guizhou cuisine restaurant closed and reopened several times, but as long as this painting remains, the fine wine remains, the osmanthus fragrance remains, and the affection between old friends remains. And this, too, is the meaning of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

(The author is a professor at the School of Art Design and Fashion of Zhejiang University of Science and Technology)

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Page editors: Wu Yanli, Ma Suwei

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