Fishermen are embracing the annual harvest season for pond smelts at the Bosten Lake in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China's largest inland freshwater lake and the biggest fishery base in Xinjiang.
For centuries, fishermen and women living by the Bosten Lake have kept alive the tradition of ice fishing -- hand-drilling holes through the thick ice and lowering nets into the waters to catch fish.
"We sometimes catch 500 to 600 kilograms, and sometimes as little as 100 to 200 kilograms [in a day]," said Wu Guangming, a local fisherman.
From January to March each year, it is the prime fishing season for pond smelts at the Bosten Lake. Freshly caught fish are usually sent to local aquaculture companies for sorting and roasting, processed into small dried fish, and sold to various parts of the country.
The lake is rich in fishery resources, with over 30 species of fish and a variety of aquatic products like green shrimp and mussels. Its annual harvest is about 4,000 tons.
In recent years, local authorities have imposed fishing bans at designated periods of time, and promoted a new model of ecological fish farming at the Bosten Lake, as effectively protecting the fishery resources at the lake.
"Every year, we continuously increase fry breeding and release events. For example, we release no less than four million fry at Bosten Lake each year, which has promoted sustainable development of the fishery economy. The annual yield at our lake is approximately 4,000 tons, with a total output value of around 80 million yuan (about 10.91 million U.S. dollars)," said Wang Ying, director of aquatic product service center.
The winter fishing season at the Bosten Lake starts in January and is expected to continue until early March, with an anticipated fish production of over 300 tons this winter.
Harvest season starts for pond smelts at Bosten Lake in northwest China's Xinjiang
Rapid developments in advanced industries across China, including AI and robotics, were major topics of discussion at open press interviews on Friday with leading researchers and industry executives serving as deputies to the 14th National People's Congress (NPC), currently in its ongoing fourth session.
The NPC, China's top legislature, is holding its annual session from Thursday through March 12.
At a series of open press events, delegations from various parts of the country, including Beijing, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and east China's Jiangxi Province, took questions on how their regions are shaping China's technological progress.
Deng Langni, a deputy to the 14th NPC and vice chairman of Guangxi University of Science and Technology, emphasized that as sources of innovation, universities need to take the initiative and provide strong support for the AI industry's development at the local level.
"The rapid pace of industrial transformation poses serious challenges to traditional disciplines and majors, pushing universities to 'break down walls' and bring classrooms onto industrial chains. Taking Guangxi University of Science and Technology as an example, it has quickly launched a number of AI-related micro-credentials across the campus, enabling students from different majors to gain 'AI thinking' and provide urgently-needed compound talents for industrial upgrading in Guangxi," said Deng.
A deputy from Beijing, Lei Jun, founder of consumer tech giant Xiaomi, offered an optimistic vision on the transformative impact that technological advances will have in manufacturing and industry.
"Sci-tech innovation can accelerate the development of new quality productive forces. Private enterprises have a key advantage in being close to markets and users, responding quickly, and rapidly applying new technologies to real-world scenarios. Humanoid robots have already been deployed in automobile factories, and I believe that, in the coming years, they will enter factories on a large scale," he said.
During the open event hosted by the Jiangxi NPC delegation, deputies said that the province has mapped out six key areas for future industries, including bold new areas such as embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces and humanoid robots.
"Many aviation, automotive and equipment manufacturing companies in Jiangxi are using intelligent robots, virtual reality and metaverse technologies to upgrade manufacturing. Workers can remotely operate equipment using immersive interfaces. Over the years, we have been dedicated to researching the key algorithms necessary for the efficient collaboration among embodied intelligent humanoid robots, digital humans and people," said NPC deputy Min Weidong, also the dean of the Metaverse Research Institute at Nanchang University.
Innovation experts from across China highlight accelerated tech deployment
