China releases first generative AI language model for meteorological services

By Li Hongmei, People’s Daily

China Meteorological Administration (CMA) has unveiled Fenghe, the nation’s first generative artificial intelligence language model dedicated to meteorological services. This innovative system enables users to input queries and receive responses and analytical reports covering diverse  weather-related needs — from wind conditions and clothing recommendations to specialized suggestions for activities like snow viewing.

Fenghe is supported by a high-quality meteorological service corpus comprising 50 million  linguistic units, along with 490,000 real-world meteorological Q&A scenarios. It is equipped with data interface tools and personalized applications spanning eight major categories and more than 60 specialized meteorological services.

The system operates through a dual architecture: the Fenghe base model performs intelligent task scheduling, while the meteorological service agent platform provides developers with tool invocation, data access, and agent development support. This integrated approach enables intelligent meteorological services for sectors such as energy and power, transportation, and tourism. 

During the 15th National Games of China, Fenghe was integrated into a WeChat mini program of the Guangzhou meteorological department, providing tailored weather services for the major sports event. The system has been deployed and applied by meteorological departments in multiple regions. 

Today, artificial intelligence is steadily reshaping people’s work and life. People are no longer satisfied with simply checking weather forecasts; instead, they expect more personalized and customized intelligent services. 

In 2024, the CMA Public Meteorological Service Center and Xiong’an Meteorological Artificial Intelligence Innovation Research Institute, in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University, formed a research and development team to independently develop a generative AI language model for meteorological services.

According to the team, in order to achieve precise, professional, and in-depth understanding of users’ needs for meteorological services, they made breakthroughs in four key technologies: corpus construction; knowledge enhancement training and scenario-specific fine-tuning; deep reasoning; and multi-agent collaboration. 

Corpus construction technology converts the CMA’s vast trove of high-quality meteorological data into dedicated formats and datasets that are “fed” into the Fenghe model for learning, thereby enhancing its professional competence.

Knowledge enhancement training and scenario fine-tuning strengthens the model’s fundamental meteorological capabilities and operational decision-making abilities, enabling it to better understand user needs and improve autonomous planning and execution for complex meteorological service tasks. 

Deep reasoning enhances the model’s reasoning capacity, allowing it to follow logical inference and make decisions much like a meteorological expert. For diverse scenarios such as tourism, transportation, and energy, the team has developed various meteorological service agents. Through multi-agent collaboration, complex tasks are automatically decomposed and planned, with complementary capabilities among agents, enabling them to work in coordination and rapidly generate professional reports.

“Tackling key technologies was never easy. Challenges once stood in the way of our improvement, but we never gave up–We tried over and over, making changes each time, and every step brought something new.” said Wang Muhua, senior engineer at the CMA Public Meteorological Service Center.

Today, the application of AI in the meteorological field is becoming increasingly widespread. New applications and scenarios continue to emerge, giving rise to a growing number of AI models that continuously empower the development of the meteorological sector.

Before Fenghe, the CMA had already introduced AI models such as Fenglei, Fengqing, Fengshun, and Fengyu. While distinct from Fenghe, these models are all applied within meteorological forecasting. Fenglei focuses on nowcasting for imminent thunderstorms and heavy rainfall; Fengqing is a global short- to medium-range forecasting system; Fengshun provides global subseasonal-to-seasonal predictions; and Fengyu is a chain-based space weather forecasting model. The integration of AI, combined with established forecasting technologies and forecasters’ extensive experience, has made weather forecasts more accurate.

In addition, many AI models have emerged in areas such as extreme precipitation prediction, severe convective weather warnings, meteorological data assimilation and analysis, meteorological observation and data processing, as well as meteorological services and decision support. 

These advances have strongly promoted the digitalization, informatization, and intelligent upgrading of meteorological operations, providing important support for people’s work and life.

How construction of Xi’an-Yan’an High-Speed Railway ensures reliable network coverage

By Li Xinping, People’s Daily

For many passengers, reliable internet connectivity has become an essential expectation of modern travel. However, maintaining stable mobile signals remains technically challenging on high-speed railways traversing mountainous terrain with extensive tunnel networks.

This makes passenger Wang Ying’s experience particularly noteworthy. While traveling on the Xi’an-Yan’an High-Speed Railway in northwest China’s Shaanxi province, she enjoyed uninterrupted high-definition videos streaming, video calls, and document transfers throughout her journey..Remarkably, despite over 55% of this railway crossing the Loess Plateau through tunnels, “the signal inside tunnels was even stronger than outside,” she observed.

The secret lies in integrated infrastructure development. During construction of the Xi’an-Yan’an High-Speed Railway, a 5G public network was simultaneously deployed,, achieving full coverage along the entire line. The exceptional tunnel connectivity results from embedding the necessary infrastructure directly into their walls.

Take the New Yan’an Tunnel along the railway as an example. This 16-kilometer tunnel features more than 80 recessed chambers along both sides, with two cable troughs pre-installed for power supply and communication signaling. Of these chambers, 16 are used to house base stations, providing roughly one base station per kilometer throughout the tunnel.

Beyond base station density, uninterrupted signal transmission relies significantly on leaky coaxial cables (radiating cables). 

These cables are designed with periodic slots in their outer conductor. As electromagnetic waves travel along the cables, signals are uniformly radiated through the slots into the tunnel space. The effect is similar to deploying a continuous series of wireless routers inside the tunnel, creating a stable, controllable “signal corridor.”

“All tunnels along the Xi’an-Yan’an High-Speed Railway are equipped with three leaky coaxial cables mounted on the tunnel walls, aligned with the roof of the trains and the upper and lower edges of the carriage windows,” explained Wang Fei, director of the high-speed railway office of the Xi’an communications section under China Railway Xi’an Bureau Group. 

“The cables aligned with the window edges are dedicated to the 5G public network. This height configuration ensures comprehensive signal coverage throughout the passenger cabin,” Wang added.

Installing these cables presented significant engineering challenges.High-speed trains generate intense aerodynamic forces in tunnels, creating substantial wind pressure that tests cable mounting durability.

The design team leveraged wind tunnel data from Central South University’s National Engineering Laboratory for High-Speed Railway Construction Technology. Their simulations calculated transient aerodynamic loads on cable clamps, revealing that in standard 52m² tunnels, each clamp endures approximately 17 newtons of force. As Wang noted: “For a sub-100-gram clamp, this equals dozens of times its own weight — with over 100 daily occurrences.”

Conventional expansion bolts could not meet the installation and fixation requirements. After a nationwide search, the design team ultimately selected a new type of fastening product.

With a tensile bearing capacity of 15 kilonewtons — nearly 900 times the calculated aerodynamic load — the new fastening product offers ample safety margins. It had also successfully passed 2 million cycles of ultra-high-cycle fatigue testing, equivalent to withstanding decades of vibration impacts caused by high-speed train operations. 

High-performance materials alone are not enough; precision construction is equally critical. The Xi’an communications section of China Railway Xi’an Group worked with design and construction partners to build a full-scale, 1:1 simulation communication equipment room.

This facility faithfully replicates the communication equipment configuration of a typical section of the Xi’an-Yan’an High-Speed Railway. Here, technicians conducted system testing and process verification under a range of extreme operating conditions.

Eventually, the design team developed a refined installation plan: drilling depth and diameter tolerances controlled at the millimeter level; hole cleaning performed with high-pressure air to ensure zero dust; adhesive injected using specialized syringes starting from the bottom of the hole to eliminate air bubbles. Every step was executed with surgical precision.

With the toughest challenge — ensuring tunnel signal coverag — successfully addressed, how was signal quality ensured along the rest of the route?

“In open bridge and embankment sections, we adopted conventional base station deployment,” Wang explained. For short tunnels under 200 meters or transition sections between bridges and tunnels, a “continuous leaky cable” strategy was applied. This ensures physical continuity of the radiating cables, preventing handover failures or signal attenuation that could cause call drops or data interruptions.

As a result, the Xi’an–Yan’an High-Speed Railway achieved full 5G signal coverage, enabling passengers to enjoy a smooth and uninterrupted online experience throughout their journey. The full-scale simulation communication facility has also delivered substantial results, generating more than 190 construction standards that have since been extended to multiple other high-speed railway projects currently under development.

Yakeshi expands beyond skiing to offer diverse winter experiences

By Yang Junfeng, People’s Daily

Yakeshi, a city in the Hulun Buir region of north China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, is entering its peak season with the arrival of a new arctic cold front. 

In recent years, this city — one of China’s key bases for automotive winter testing — has been undergoing a transformation from a specialized testing ground into a comprehensive ice-and-snow industry hub, emerging as a new model for economic development in cold-region cities.

The 2025-2026 automotive winter testing season officially commenced in Yakeshi on the morning of December 7, 2025. With the signal flag raised, a diverse fleet of test vehicles — ranging from electric sedans and high-performance SUVs to luxury sports cars — began traversing the snow-covered tracks.

“The natural ice surfaces and sustained sub-zero temperatures here provide optimal conditions for validating the performance of new energy vehicles,” said Ma Zhanyun, chief engineer in charge of high-altitude, high-temperature, and high-cold tests at Chinese automobile giant BYD. 

Ma was overseeing his team at the Hulun Buir winter test site of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center. Their work focused on critical areas like low-temperature driving range and battery thermal management systems, with each dataset providing vital input for product refinement.

Situated at 49 degrees north latitude, Yakeshi experiences an average winter temperature of minus 24 degrees Celsius, with extreme lows reaching minus 50 degrees Celsius. The freezing period lasts up to six months, snow cover extends for nearly 200 days a year, and ice thickness reaches two to four meters. 

This natural environment offers vehicles full-scenario testing environments, including extreme cold starts, low-temperature endurance, and handling on ice-and-snow-covered surfaces, allowing reliability under extreme conditions to be verified without artificial simulation.

Since automotive testing was first introduced in 2006, Yakeshi has evolved from a single-purpose testing site for conventional fuel vehicles into a site with comprehensive testing system covering more than a dozen categories, including new energy vehicles, intelligent connected vehicles, luxury supercars, and special-purpose vehicles. 

A large number of well-known domestic and international companies have since established a presence there, forming a technology-intensive industrial cluster. To date, Yakeshi has conducted more than 28,000 vehicle test runs, received over 340,000 client visits, served more than 1,400 automakers, and generated total revenue of 1.14 billion yuan ($162.72 million).

As a benchmark base for automotive winter testing in China, Yakeshi is set to reach a new high in testing scale this winter, with an estimated 230 automakers from around the world and more than 2,700 vehicles expected to participate, marking steady growth compared with previous years.

On December 11, 2025, a project to build China’s first all-season ice-and-snow testing base for intelligent connected new energy vehicles, with a total investment of 1.039 billion yuan, was officially signed and launched in Yakeshi. Construction is scheduled to begin in May 2026 and be completed in 2028. 

Once finished, it will become the world’s largest, most comprehensive, and technologically advanced all-season ice-and-snow testing base for new energy vehicles. The project will include the country’s first professional testing facility with indoor snowfall scenarios and China’s only winter testing site for flying cars, enabling extreme low-temperature testing at minus 40 degrees Celsius throughout the year.

While automotive winter testing is accelerating industrial growth, Yakeshi’s ice-and-snow tourism is also constantly reinventing itself.

“Faster! Faster!” Cheers rang out from the snow-slide area at the Phoenix Mountain scenic area. A snow track more than 100 meters long, resembling a white ribbon, winded down a hillside, with a specially designed buffer slope at the end ensuring both excitement and safety.

“It’s so much fun! I want to go again!” said Duoduo, a five-year-old visitor from Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang province.

Yakeshi has moved beyond a single focus on skiing to offer a richer, more immersive ice-and-snow tourism experience.

At a recently launched ice and snow art festival, a “tanghulu tree” — more than 10 meters tall and decorated with over 10,000 skewers of the traditional Chinese candied hawthorn snack — has emerged as a popular attraction for visitors. 

Ice houses built from 2,200 cubic meters of natural ice gleamed with crystalline clarity, while activities such as a 500-meter-long snow slide, snowmobile rides, and a snow maze added to the fun. 

Last winter, the city welcomed 1.3151 million tourists, generating total tourism revenue of 1.587 billion yuan.

Winter testing and winter tourism have together fostered a mutually reinforcing development ecosystem in Yakeshi. The influx of engineers and technical personnel during the testing season has become a stable source of visitors for ice-and-snow tourism, while the steadily improving catering, accommodation, and other supporting services have in turn provided solid backing for the testing industry.

The dividends of this industrial integration are ultimately benefiting local residents. “In the past, winter just meant staying at home. Now winters in Yakeshi are incredibly lively,” said a woman surnamed Wang, who runs a restaurant in the city. She told People’s Daily that during the testing season and peak tourism periods, her restaurant serves over 100 customers a day, with revenues more than three times higher than usual. “This would have been unimaginable more than a decade ago,” she said.

On the extreme cold tracks, rolling wheels are driving industrial upgrading; across the snow-covered landscapes, laughter and joy are unlocking consumption potential. With ingenuity and hard work, this northern Chinese city is turning “cold resources” into a “hot economy,” continuously writing its own chapter of high-quality development.

What is it like to work in a green office building?

By Fan Haotian, People’s Daily

Early in the morning, Cai Heng walked into the headquarters building of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group Co., Ltd. 

As his footsteps echoed through the lobby, the lights above him gradually activated. Outside the glass curtain wall, sunlight was already illuminating the 14,000 square meters of monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels installed on the rooftop and skybridges.

This headquarters building is one of the landmark structures in East Lake High-tech Development Zone, also known as the “Optics Valley of China”, in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province.

Cai has worked here for many years and knows the building well. Yet since last year, he has begun to notice subtle changes.

Stepping into the elevator lobby, Cai pressed the button for the 15th floor. “The elevator was a little jolty when starting and stopping. Now it runs much more smoothly,” he said. 

The improvement came from newly installed energy-regeneration devices. They not only make elevator operation smoother but also convert potential energy generated during operation into electricity that is fed back into the grid, significantly reducing energy consumption.

Back at his workstation, soft natural light poured through the glass curtain wall and spread across Cai’s desk. In 2024, a special heat-insulating film was added to the building’s glass facade. It preserves a clear view of the scenery outside while greatly improving thermal insulation.

Shi Fei, executive manager of the integrated energy division at City Investment and Operation Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group Co., Ltd., explained that the film keeps out 72 percent of heat. In summer, it blocks much of the outdoor heat, while in winter it reflects long-wave far-infrared radiation back indoors to retain warmth. This single measure saves an average of 252,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by about 126 tons.

At 10 a.m., Cai’s department held a project coordination meeting. Although more than a dozen people are seated in the small conference room, the air felt fresh and comfortable. 

“Today’s buildings are smart — they can ‘think,'” Shi said. With a self-developed zero-carbon smart operation platform, more than 3,000 parameters from systems such as photovoltaics, charging piles, air conditioning, and lighting are integrated. Using the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, the ventilation system monitors indoor carbon dioxide levels and occupancy in real time, adjusting airflow through variable-frequency fans. This alone cuts carbon emissions by about 87.6 tons per year.

At lunchtime, Cai headed to the cafeteria on the basement level. Passing through the skybridge and the ground-floor lobby, he felt a pleasant warmth in the corridors. “In winter, there used to be a chilling draft here,” he recalled. With better heating now, does that mean higher energy consumption?

The answer is negative. Liu Li, a technical expert at a green and low-carbon technology research institute of China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group Co., Ltd., explained the secret behind the lobby’s “comfort upgrade.” 

The entrance route and management approach were redesigned, air curtains were installed to block outside air, and in winter the angles of the air-conditioning outlets were adjusted downward while radiant floor heating was activated. In the first winter after renovation, the lobby temperature rose by about 9 degrees Celsius, while heat retention improved and energy losses were reduced.

“Green buildings are not only about energy-saving indicators,” Liu said. “They are also about how people inside them actually feel.”

In the China Construction Technology Industrial Park, where the headquarters building is located, an underground integrated energy station was completed in June 2025. 

“We use sewage-source heat pump technology, turning treated wastewater from a nearby wastewater treatment plant into a second energy source,” said An Ming, head of the energy station. 

During cold and damp winters, the wastewater temperature remains between 12 and 16 degrees Celsius, allowing the system to extract heat for space heating. In summer, the process is reversed, with heat released into the wastewater for cooling. 

Previously discharged directly, the treated wastewater now replaces gas boilers and district steam heating, cutting an estimated 2,300 tons of carbon emissions annually.

Across the industrial park, photovoltaic panels with an installed capacity of 2.1 megawatts generate 2.156 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1,078.2 tons. 

Lighting systems automatically turn on when people arrive and off when they leave, cutting emissions by 67.5 tons each year. Newly added energy storage systems store electricity during off-peak hours and release it during peak demand, lowering overall energy costs by 23 percent. 

After a series of upgrades, carbon emissions across the entire park have been reduced by 30 percent, while emissions from the headquarters building alone have dropped by 45 percent.

“Working in this building, you can feel every day that green lifestyles are all around you,” Cai said.

China steps up efforts to advance AI-assisted manufacturing

By Liu Wenxin, People’s Daily

The deep integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with the real economy is profoundly reshaping models of manufacturing and economic structures, accelerating industrial upgrading. 

On January 7, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with seven other departments, released a work plan to deepen the.integration of the manufacturing sector and artificial intelligence (AI).

The document outlines seven priority areas—innovation foundation, intelligent upgrading, product breakthrough, market player, ecosystem expansion, security assurance, and the international cooperation. It also details 21 specific measures to speed up the intelligent, sustainable, and integrated development of the manufacturing sector.

According to the document, China will achieve secure and reliable supply of key AI technologies by 2027, with its industrial scale and empowerment capacity remaining among the world’s leading ranks. 

The document calls for promoting the in-depth application of three to five general-purpose large AI models in manufacturing, launching 1,000 high-level industrial intelligent agents, building 100 high-quality industrial data sets, and promoting 500 typical application scenarios. 

It aims to foster two to three ecosystem-leading enterprises with global influence, nurture a group of specialized small and medium-sized businesses that produce novel and unique products, cultivate a number of application service providers proficient in both AI and industrial development, and establish 1,000 benchmark firms. 

A globally leading open-source and open ecosystem will be established, with comprehensive improvements in security governance, contributing Chinese solutions to global AI development.

In textile workshops, air-conditioning fans are needed to regulate temperature and humidity, purify the air, and ensure ventilation. Traditional products rely heavily on manual adjustment, resulting in low precision and difficulty in predicting equipment failures. 

“By using Inspur Yunzhou Industrial Internet Platform, we installed multiple types of sensors on traditional fans to collect and train data, and developed digital-intelligent fans,” said Wu Zicai, chairman of Shandong Jinxin Air Conditioning Group. 

According to Wu, these digital-intelligent fans can optimize parameters such as air volume in real time based on operating conditions, precisely control workshop temperature and humidity, and reduce equipment maintenance cycles by 40 percent.

“Enterprises need to accelerate full-process transformation and upgrading by deeply embedding large-model technologies into all stages—from research and development (R&D) and pilot testing to production, marketing, services, and operations management—so as to enhance capabilities in assisted design, simulation modeling, production scheduling, and predictive maintenance,” an expert said.

In the R&D and design phase, efforts should focus on promoting intelligent design assistance, software code generation, and pharmaceutical research, creating new R&D models that are more personalized, lower in cost, and higher in efficiency. 

In production and manufacturing, industrial quality inspection technologies such as machine vision and unmanned intelligent inspections should be expanded. This will enhance real-time monitoring of production lines, predictive maintenance, and the precision of equipment fault identification, while enabling early warnings for potential safety risks and incidents in production operations. 

In operations and management, the analytical and generative capabilities of large AI models should be used to enhance enterprises’ management of strategy, human resources, finance, and risks.

To support enterprises using AI in R&D, production, operations, and value-added services, the document provides an additional guidance for AI application in manufacturing.

This application guide provides detailed, step-by-step guidance on conducting intelligent assessments and planning, strengthening foundational digital capabilities, building high-quality data sets, reasonably planning computing power resources, selecting and optimizing models, deploying and integrating models, and ensuring AI application security—offering hands-on pathways and methods for intelligent transformation and upgrading.

From experience-based mining to smart exploration, and from craftsmanship-driven smelting to AI-enabled precision control, China’s non-ferrous metals industry is also advancing rapidly. Recently, the industry large model Kun’an 2.0 was released, further exploring the deep integration of AI technologies across the entire non-ferrous metals industrial chain.

“Over the past year, we have applied AI to key industrial processes and promoted the development of more than 100 application scenarios. From these, we selected and released 52 scenarios and built eight high-quality industry data sets,” said Duan Xiangdong, chairman of Aluminum Corporation of China.

Ge Honglin, president of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, noted that the industry features a wide range of products, complex resources, and highly intricate process flows, and faces challenges in digital and intelligent development in areas such as technology adaptation, data governance, coordination, and talent development. To address such industry-wide challenges, the document clearly call for the development of high-level industry models and the acceleration of AI-enabled applications in key sectors.

“AI applications in manufacturing should be advanced through differentiated approaches, taking into account each industry’s characteristics, technological maturity, and level of digitalization,” said an official with the Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. 

The official added that the document also provides tailored guidance for sectors including raw materials, equipment manufacturing, consumer goods, electronic information, and software and information technology services, supporting industry-specific transformation efforts.

Greening a reef: quiet ecological revival of Xishazhou in Hainan

By Dong Zeyang, People’s Daily

Fisherman Zhan Dafeng hauled in his nets, started his engine, and departed from Xishazhou Island in Hainan province, southern China. His boat carried no fish this time — only marine debris collected from the ocean.

Once dedicated to planting trees on the island, local fishermen now patrol the expansive waters to safeguard this transformed reef. What was once barren is now a thriving maritime oasis.

Xishazhou Island lies in Sansha, China’s southernmost prefecture-level city, located in Hainan province. Situated at the westernmost edge of the Qilian Yu, a subgroup of islands in the Xisha Islands, Xishazhou Island was once little more than a desolate sandbank. 

Today, over 90% of the island is verdant with vegetation. Coastal she-oak groves mingle with coconut palms, Morinda citrifolia, and Strophanthus divaricatus, creating a lush haven emerging from the sea.

“Only scattered trees existed here before,” recalled Zhan. “The island gradually transformed after we began planting.” In 2013, local fishermen established Xishazhou’s first saplings.

Getting trees to the island was no easy task. Saplings were shipped from Hainan Island, traveling more than 180 nautical miles over a journey of 20-plus hours. With no navigable channels around the reef, supplies could only be landed at high tide. Fishermen improvised floating rafts, hoisted the saplings from transport vessels onto rafts, then hauled them ashore by hand and carried them across the island.

Planting proved equally demanding. Scorching heat, saltwater erosion and typhoons frequently withered or uprooted new plantings, requiring persistent reforestation efforts. 

Through trial, error, and expert consultation, Zhan and fellow fishermen developed effective techniques. They selected salt-tolerant native species to improve survival rates. To combat the coral sand’s poor water retention and nutrient deficiency, they pioneered an innovative bottle-planting technique to nourish roots.

How did it work?

Discarded glass bottles filled with water held saplings, allowing roots to draw moisture both inside and outside the container. Roots submerged in water eventually decayed, while those extending into the sand absorbed nutrients. Remarkably, one bottle sustained a sapling for a year.

“The earth conditions here are quite similar to deserts in northern China,” Zhan explained. “We learned the bottle-planting technique from forestry workers in Ordos, Inner Mongolia autonomous region, and adapted it to local conditions.” As the method proved effective and was gradually refined, more fishermen joined the island greening effort.

In the early days, freshwater for irrigation had to be shipped from Hainan Island or Zhaoshu, the main island of the Xisha Islands, or collected from rainfall. These limited sources made large-scale greening difficult. The sandy terrain also lacked nutrients, requiring soil to be transported from Hainan Island.

To overcome water shortages, desalination equipment now provides irrigation and drinking water. Sansha City built a simple pier for transporting soil and supplies. Over a decade, 138,000 trees were planted with a 95% survival rate.

“The trees now sustain themselves,” Zhan noted. The thriving ecosystem stabilizes dunes, consolidates land, retains moisture, and enriches biodiversity. Mature trees exceed 10 meters in height. Decomposing leaves beneath she-oaks transform sand into soil, supporting vines and undergrowth.

Wildlife has returned: sea turtles nest here, and migratory birds like great crested and sooty terns breed on the island. “I welcome them wholeheartedly,” said Zhan, who now serves as an “island custodian,” patrolling reefs with fellow fishermen to protect these new residents.

Back at Zhaoshu, Zhan delivered the collected debris to an environmental station. Inside, rows of plastic bottles — washed ashore by monsoons — testified to ongoing cleanup efforts. After sorting, the waste is shipped to Hainan for recycling.

Protecting island ecosystems requires both greening efforts and pollution control. On Yongxing Island, where the Sansha’s municipal government is based, fishermen help maintain nurseries that supply saplings to nearby islands. Across the archipelago, officials, workers and local communities conduct regular marine cleanup operations, circling the islands by boat to clear debris from beaches and surrounding waters.

“We will continue promoting island greening and marine sanitation efforts, ensuring tangible improvements in environmental protection and visible changes to the islands’ appearance,” said Chen Yifen, head of the Qilian Yu ecological office.

Sanae Takaichi’s rhetoric signals the risks of Japan’s evolving security strategy

By Liu Jiangyong

“Collective self-defense” is one of the forms of self-defense recognized under Article 51 of the UN Charter. It was conceived to prevent the resurgence of fascism and a renewed threat to world peace. 

Japan’s Constitution formally renounce war and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. On this basis, the Japanese government claimed to uphold the exclusively defense-oriented principle, under which Japan may employ defensive forces only when it is subjected to an armed attack, and may not exercise the right of collective self-defense.

However, in 2015, Shinzo Abe’s cabinet forced new security legislation through the Diet, paving the way for Japan to exercise of the right of collective self-defense and asserting that Japan may exercise this right in response to so-called “survival-threatening situation.” 

Such a “survival-threatening situation” is defined as a case in which a country with close relations to Japan comes under armed attack, thereby posing a clear danger to Japan’s survival and fundamentally overturning the Japanese people’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi claimed that “a Taiwan contingency” could constitute such a “survival-threatening situation,” implying Japan’s possible armed intervention in the Taiwan Strait. 

As the incumbent prime minister of Japan and supreme commander of the Self-Defense Forces, Takaichi recklessly linked the Taiwan question with the exercise of collective self-defense, which amounts to a military threat against China and is extremely egregious in nature. Its danger is manifested in four major respects.

First, it exposes that Japan’s large-scale military expansion is directed squarely at China, gravely undermining peace and stability in East Asia.

By invoking collective self-defense, Japan seeks to draw the United States into a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait and jointly obstruct China’s reunification by force. This portends the possibility that Japan may once again become a source of war in Asia. 

After half of century of colonial rule over Taiwan, Japan now appears, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Taiwan’s restoration to China, to be reviving ambitions toward the island — a move that neither the Chinese government nor the Chinese people will ever accept.

Second, Japan’s recent statements implying possible military action against China constitutes a serious challenge to the postwar international legal framework. This framework established through foundational documents such as the UN Charter, the Potsdam Proclamation, and the Cairo Declaration.

The Cairo Declaration stipulates that all the territories Japan has stolen from China, including Taiwan, shall be restored to China. 

In July 1945, the Potsdam Proclamation jointly issued by China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, calling for Japan’s surrender, emphasized that “the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.” 

In September of the same year, Japan, in its Instrument of Surrender, explicitly pledged to faithfully fulfill the obligations laid down in the Potsdam Proclamation. 

In the 1972 Sino-Japanese Joint Statement, the Japanese government again undertook to adhere to the position set forth in Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation. 

By deliberately evading these commitments and instead invoking the illegal and invalid Treaty of San Francisco to fabricate the fallacy that “Taiwan’s status remains undetermined,” Takaichi is suspected of subverting the postwar international law and order and the political and legal foundations of China-Japan relations.

Third, such rhetoric violates both international law and Japan’s domestic law, and has crossed the red line on the Taiwan question. 

The UN Charter, the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan, and the Constitution of Japan all stipulate the peaceful settlement of international disputes and prohibit the threat or use of force. 

Article 98 of the Constitution of Japan further provides that treaties concluded by Japan and established international law shall be faithfully observed. 

The Taiwan question, at the core of China’s core interests, concerns China’s internal affairs. Yet Takaichi has deliberately internationalized the issue and threatened to resort to force, thereby seriously endangering China’s national security and peace in East Asia.

Fourth, similar reckless remarks have appeared repeatedly in history, and Japan is showing a dangerous tendency to return to the old path of militarism. 

From the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to its defeat and surrender in World War II in 1945, Japan repeatedly used such pretexts as “survival-threatening situation” or “protecting the safety of Japanese nationals overseas” to expand its military and launch wars of aggression, ultimately sliding into militarism. 

Today, Japan’s renewed invocation of “survival-threatening situation,” combined with efforts to revise the “three security documents” including the National Security Strategy, sharply increased defense spending, continuously loosened restrictions on arms exports, and even begun exporting lethal weapons, all of which mark a departure from the postwar path of peaceful development.

Should Japan persist on this path, it risks severely undermining regional and global stability. Confronted with this trend, the international community — particularly its own citizens — must maintain vigilance and unequivocally oppose such developments.

(Liu Jiangyong is a professor at the Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University.)

“New Monroe Doctrine” never needed in today’s world

By Huan Yuping, People’s Daily

A series of recent actions taken by the United States against Venezuela—from military strikes and forcible capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, to open declarations of intent to “run” Venezuela and gain control over its oil resources—have laid bare the underlying logic of domination and power politics that define the so-called “new Monroe Doctrine.” 

These measures not only constitute a blatant violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty, but also challenge and undermine the international law and basic norms governing international relations enshrined in the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.

I.

The “new Monroe Doctrine” is by no means a novel concept. Rather, it represents the continuation and a dangerous escalation of the United States’ traditional hegemonic policy in the contemporary era. 

An article published on the website of Spain’s El País observed, “By intervening in Venezuela, Washington is reviving the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine,” noting that the U.S. approach amounts to a “gunboat diplomacy 2.0.”

At the end of 2025, the White House released the 2025 National Security Strategy, explicitly stating: “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region.”

Recent actions, including military action against Venezuela, threats directed towards Latin American countries like Cuba, and overt territorial ambitions expressed toward Greenland, a Danish territory, have given the international community a clearer picture of the trajectory of U.S. policy and heightened concerns over the regional and global consequences that this “new Monroe Doctrine” may bring.

What exactly does the “new Monroe Doctrine” entail? The United States’ own words and deeds provide a stark answer.

Its objective is to be ensuring that the Western Hemisphere becomes what U.S. politicians have termed “our hemisphere,” subordinating territories, resources, and sea lanes of regional countries to U.S. interests, and aligning their domestic and foreign policies with the United States’ will. 

The United States is discarding all pretenses and openly relying on brute-force methods, including military strikes, intimidation and coercion, economic pressure, and efforts to instigate regime change. Guided by doctrines prioritizing “might makes right” and “America First,” the United States demonstrates a willingness to pursue its self-serving interests with minimal restraint.

What will the “new Monroe Doctrine” bring to the region? History offers a clear warning.

“All the way back to 1823, James Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine. You are a part of it now, you are a part of that legacy.” A U.S. politician recently declared. This amounts to an open admission that today’s United States is inheriting and perpetuating a historical tradition of intervention and exploition that once caused immense suffering to the peoples of Latin America. 

From seizing more than half of Mexico’s territory in 1848, to occupying Haiti with troops in 1915, to invading the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama during the Cold War, the record is long and grim. As The Guardian has pointed out, “Almost every country in the region has experienced some form of U.S. intervention, overt or covert.” 

Historically, Monroe Doctrine implementation reduced Latin America to a long-term “strategic backyard,” a “supplier of raw materials,” a “dumping ground for goods,” and a “cultural colony” of the United States. The development trajectories of Latin American countries were repeatedly disrupted, and their peoples endured extensive suffering. 

As Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano revealed in his book Open Veins of Latin America, this pattern of “externalized development” remains a recurring script: the underground wealth of other nations must fuel the U.S. hegemony.

II.

When assessing the current situation, a U.S. scholar has asserted that Venezuela has become a springboard for the 21st-century Monroe Doctrine.

As the United States reasserts the Western Hemisphere as a foreign policy priority, Latin America and the Caribbean are likely to face potential disruptions to peace, stability, and development, with regional autonomy significantly constrained. 

The United States has justified its increased military presence in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific as part of its efforts to combat “narco-terrorism,” yet its recent escalation to direct military action against Venezuela highlights a troubling pattern of manufacturing security crises in the region. Such interventions pose a significant threat to the Latin American people’s pursuit of peaceful lives. Through overt interference in the internal affairs of Latin American nations, the United States has intensified political divisions, creating serious risks to the region’s political stability.

By imposing asset seizures and tariffs, the United States is siphoning development resources from the entire region northward, depriving regional countries of their right to independent development and severely impacting local economies and livelihoods. 

By stoking confrontation between so-called “pro-U.S.” and “autonomous” camps in the region, the United States undermines regional unity and self-reliance, obstructing regional integration eventually.

The harm caused by the “new Monroe Doctrine” extends far beyond Latin America. Following the U.S. military action against Venezuela, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that such actions had set a “dangerous precedent.” 

At its core, the doctrine represents a fundamental clash between hegemony and justice, “spheres of influence” and sovereign equality, and unilateral dominance and mutual respect. It directly contradicts the international law and basic norms governing international relations, violates the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and the foundation of international relations, and threatens to undermine fairness and justice on a global scale.

When the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting on the U.S. military action against Venezuela, U.S. politicians responded that “they didn’t care what the UN says,” bluntly exposing the United States’ contempt for the UN, for multilateralism, and for the international order.

Undermining international norms endangers all nations. Hegemony, by its nature, does not restrains itself. By openly placing brute force above justice, it breeds insecurity and instability across the world. 

Indeed, the expansionist ambitions and predatory mindset now on display in the United States reflect a striking sense of being “out of sync with the times,” alarming and unsettling the global community. 

Some analysts pointed out that the “new Monroe Doctrine” is not a revivial but a “dangerous escalation.” The Washington Post has warned that if such barbaric behavior becomes normalized, the consequences would be disastrous, with “might makes right” becoming the sole rule.

III.

The world does not need a “new Monroe Doctrine,” and history will inevitably consign it to the dustbin.

The UN Charter clearly states that “The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members,” and that “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the UN.” 

In today’s international relations, sovereign equality is the prerequisite for peaceful coexistence, while the rule of international law is the fundamental safeguard and the backbone of fairness and justice. These most basic principles underpin the long-term peace and stability of the world and must be jointly upheld by the international community.

In response to the U.S. action against Venezuela and the rising “new Monroe Doctrine,” the strongest and broadest consensus within the international community is to defend the international law and basic norms governing international relations, and to uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. 

Voices from around the world have noted that “the United States is willing to disregard long-established international legal principles to achieve its own goals,” that it “poses a serious threat to the international order established after World War II,” and that it has “effectively erased the very existence of international law.”

The “new Monroe Doctrine” and the global condemnation it has received act as a mirror, reflecting both the limits of hegemonic powers’ global expansion and their reckless use of localized force. It also underscores the ongoing shift toward a multipolar world and the democratization of international relations—along with the inevitable twists and turns along this path.

Temporary advantage lies in power, but lasting victory lies in justice. History moves forward, and justice will ultimately prevail over brute force. In the face of hegemony, the international community must firmly stand on the right side of history, jointly safeguard international fairness and justice, and ensure that righteousness prevails and the world remains upright and bright.

Dingri county in Xizang shows renewed landscape one year after earthquake

By Yuan Quan, Xu Yuyao, Chungda Drolkar, People’s Daily

In Chajiang village, Chamco township, Dingri county Shigatse, southwest China’s Xizang autonomous region, 14-year-old Sonam Dorje now lives in a newly constructed traditional two-toned dwelling. a newly built red-and-white Tibetan-style house is home to Sonam Dorje. Despite sub-zero temperatures outside dipping to minus 20 degrees Celsius, warmth fills the home, accompanied by the comforting aroma of freshly brewed butter tea.

Sonam Dorje, who suffered leg fractures when trapped beneath rubble during the devastating Dingri earthquake a year ago, now moves freely around his new house. The memory of being rescued remains vivid. “I want to become a firefighter to help others when I grow up,” he declared.

Following the magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck Dingri on Jan. 7, 2025, Xizang has undertaken a massive reconstruction effort. Over the past year, more than 22,000 homes have been rebuilt, covering an area of 3.1 million square meters, while another 10,500 homes have undergone repair and structural reinforcement.

Newly paved roads connect clusters of rebuilt homes, children play on football fields, and villages like Zingkar in Chamco now boast complete supporting facilities.

“It was friends from Shanghai who helped us build our new homes,” said villager Norbu. During the reconstruction, he forged deep friendships with construction workers, lending a hand on site and even volunteering as an interpreter between the construction teams and local residents.

Zingkar was among the hardest hit in the Dingri earthquake, and its reconstruction was assisted by Shanghai. “Our focus extended beyond seismic safety,” said Zhuang Yinong, engineering director of the general contracting department of Shanghai Construction Group. “We aimed to create a green, livable, modern village.”

The rebuilding effort exemplified nationwide solidarity. Central government departments like the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development provided guidance and support. Over 1,000 professionals from institutions including Tongji University contributed to design. Nationally, 134 enterprises, more than 2,600 management staff, and over 61,000 workers labored around the clock, completing tasks across  1,032 sites in 47 townships. 

Reconstruction proceeded hand-in-hand with restoring livelihoods and revitalizing industry. 

In Tongra village, Dinggye county, Shigatse, a cooperative feed plant hums with activity during winter, processing and baling forage. Confident invested as shareholders. By the end of 2025, the cooperative achieved sales exceeding 650,000 yuan ($93,073), boosting incomes for dozens of households.  

Shigatse has prioritized upgrading animal feed production in affected counties, strengthening local capacity for self-sustained development as industries thrive and livelihoods stabilize.

At the same time, Shigatse has vigorously promoted work-relief programs, employment assistance, and skills training. Residents in disaster-hit areas were widely mobilized to take part in debris removal, repairs, and reinforcement work. This has benefited 110,500 people and generated a total income of 1.16 billion yuan, significantly enhancing the sense of fulfillment among affected communities.

“We have always treated post-disaster reconstruction as a major political task and a critical project to improve people’s livelihoods,” said Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Communist Party of China Xizang Autonomous Regional Committee. “We achieved the goal of rebuilding and moving residents into new homes within the same year.”

Three questions for Japan: Unmasking its so-called ‘pacifist nation’ image

By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily

Recently, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi sought momentum for revising the country’s three security documents, she claimed that the move was intended to strengthen Japan’s “independence and peace” and to “protect the lives and livelihoods of the people.” 

Preaching “peace” while pressing ahead with military expansion, however, reveals a glaring contradiction between words and deeds. This stark disparity not only tears away the mask of Japan’s self-styled image as a “pacifist nation,” but also fully exposes the dangerous direction of the country’s current strategic trajectory.

For a long time, Japan has carefully cultivated a “pacifist nation” persona on the international stage, attempting to whitewash the crimes of militarist aggression through a web of rhetoric and cosmetic gestures, and to deceive the international community into granting it trust. Yet many of Japan’s actions in reality leave little choice but to question its true intentions.

Why would a so-called “pacifist nation” regard its “pacifist constitution” as a thorn in the eye and be eager to discard it?

Japan’s “pacifist constitution” clearly stipulates that the country forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes, and that it will never maintain land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, nor recognize the right of belligerency of the state. This laid the domestic legal cornerstone for Japan’s postwar path of peaceful development. 

Since coming into force in 1947, the “pacifist constitution” has restrained Japan’s impulses toward military expansion and sent a clear signal of non-war to Asian neighbors that once suffered from Japanese aggression, playing an important role in improving Japan’s relations with countries in the region.

However, Japan’s right wing has long portrayed the “pacifist constitution” as an obstacle to so-called “national normalization,” and in recent years has accelerated efforts to hollow it out: lifting the ban on the exercise of collective self-defense, enacting the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, formulating new security laws, rapidly increasing military spending, developing so-called “counterstrike capabilities,” and loosening restrictions on arms exports. 

These moves run counter to the original intent of the pacifist constitution, render the principle of “exclusively defense-oriented policy” hollow in name only, tacitly recognize “the right of belligerency,” and in effect push Japan toward “neo-militarism.”

Why would a so-called “pacifist nation” attempt to revise the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles?” 

This just lays bare its ambition to possess nuclear weapons. As the only country in the world to have suffered nuclear attacks, Japan should have stood firmly in defense of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. Yet senior Japanese officials have put forward fallacious arguments advocating “nuclear armament,” and have shown growing eagerness to revise the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles.” 

Such behavior is not only a betrayal of Japan’s own pledges to peace, but also an open challenge to the postwar international order and the authority of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Japan is a typical “nuclear-threshold state,” having long produced and stockpiled plutonium far in excess of what is actually required for civilian nuclear energy. For this very reason, any loosening of Japan’s nuclear policy would deliver a severe shock to the regional security landscape and global strategic stability. 

In response to the Japanese government’s current pro-nuclear tendencies, some Japanese media have raised pointed questions: if even the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” are cast aside, it would be the worst possible outcome — just how far does this hawkish administration intend to go in exposing its true nature?

Why does a so-called “pacifist nation” repeatedly stir up trouble and undermine regional peace and stability?

The Takaichi administration has repeatedly made mischief over the Taiwan question, openly interfering in China’s internal affairs and even issuing military threats against China, plunging China-Japan relations into serious difficulty. 

This is by no means an isolated case. In recent years, Japan’s right wing has constantly hyped the so-called “China threat,” deliberately fanning the flames and creating troubles on the Taiwan question and the South China Sea issue. Japan has also been beset by frequent frictions and conflicts in its relations with other regional countries, including the Republic of Korea, Russia, and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

More dangerously, Japan is working hard to serve as a “vanguard” for countries outside the region, pushing for the creation of a so-called “Asia-Pacific version of NATO” and attempting to import bloc confrontation into Asia. This seriously undermines mutual trust among regional countries and creates major risks to regional peace and stability.

Japan’s own history of belligerence and war fever offers a stark and recent warning, making any return to militarism and reckless adventurism something the international community must be on guard against. 

Looking back at World War II, Japan once cloaked its aggression with the false slogan of “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” relied on diplomatic smokescreens to deceive others, and launched a war through a brazen surprise attack on the Pearl Harbor. 

Today, Japan once again wraps itself in the cloak of “peace,” while in practice pursuing military expansion and policies that undermine regional peace and stability. 

Such words and deeds mirror the sinister tactics employed by Japanese militarism before and during the outbreak of World War II. The purpose is to mislead the international community and create conditions and conveniences for strategic speculation and adventurism.

In 1954, Japan presented a “Peace Bell” to the United Nations, which bears the inscription “Long live absolute world peace.” The irony could hardly be greater. Today, Japan’s right wing is striding ever further down the perilous path of “neo-militarism.” 

In the face of the Takaichi administration’s profoundly wrong and extremely dangerous strategic direction, the international community must stay vigilant, see clearly through the false mask of this so-called “pacifist nation,” and take resolute action to jointly safeguard regional and international peace and stability.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy and international affairs.)