Heavy snowstorms and strong winds battered parts of China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region on Sunday and Monday, disrupting road traffic and affecting farming, with local authorities immediately activating swift emergency responses to ensure public safety.
At 03:00 on Monday, a border police station in Altay Prefecture received a distress call from a family stranded in a road by the snowstorm while driving home.
The police rushed to the scene amid strong winds and visibility of less than 20 meters on the highway.
The road was covered with 30 centimeters of snow, leaving the vehicle unable to move due to the poor visibility.
After more than an hour of efforts, the police officers successfully escorted the stranded vehicle and its four occupants to safety.
By 10:00 Monday, the snowstorms subsided and traffic returned to normal.
Snowstorms also hit the provincial capital Urumqi on Monday.
In response, local traffic police enhanced road patrols and video surveillance, and imposed temporary road restrictions during heavy snow.
They also conducted snow removal operations immediately in a bid to resume normal traffic.
In Manas County of Changji Prefecture, heavy snow began at 04:00 on Monday, with temperatures plunging to minus three degrees Celsius and snow reaching 10 centimeters, causing significant disruptions to traffic. As a result, traffic control measures were put in place on the Urumqi-Kuitun Expressway, prompting many drivers to shift to G312 highway, adding to the traffic congestion in the region.
Meanwhile, continued snow and strong winds battered Jimsar County of Changji Prefecture from Sunday night to Monday morning, with snow reaching five centimeters in six hours.
At a local greenhouse farm in Quanzijie Town, staff members worked overnight to keep the temperature inside the greenhouses stable by turning on heating systems and covering the outside with insulation cotton, ensuring a cozy environment for the strawberries amid the freezing temperatures.
Heavy snow disrupts traffic, affects farming in China's Xinjiang
Chinese President Xi Jinping's New Year message delivered on the New Year Eve has drawn positive responses from scholars and former officials from several countries, who say that the series of global initiatives proposed by Xi have provided fresh momentum for multilateralism and shared development at a time of growing uncertainty.
While the reactions touched on the broader vision outlined in Xi's New Year message, they also focused on the initiatives Xi has put forward over recent years, particularly the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the newly proposed Global Governance Initiative.
Highlighting the significant importance of these initiatives, they have emphasized the need for equality, inclusiveness and a fairer international order.
"We need a more just international order and a truly multilateral system. China stands almost alone today as a global force actively advancing genuine multilateralism. Therefore, these initiatives are most welcome," said Michael Schumann, chairman of the German Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade.
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab has placed the emphasis on dialogue and trust-building between civilizations.
"It is essential now more than ever to promote communication and understanding between China and the world to enhance cultural exchanges and build mutual trust. As President Xi has repeatedly emphasized, China supports principles of unity, inclusiveness and peacefulness. These values should guide our collective efforts to build bridges rather than walls," he said.
From a governance perspective, Russian scholar Ekaterina Zaklyazminskaya, head of the Center for World Politics and Strategic Analysis at the Institute of China and Modern Asia under the Russian Academy of Sciences, has viewed the Global Governance Initiative as a structured response to global challenges.
"The recently proposed Global Governance Initiative presents a comprehensive framework of ideas. It prioritizes establishing a more just international order, champions multilateralism, and upholds the principle of 'people first.' Through its concrete practices, financial assistance, and tangible support for multilateral bodies like the U.N., China has demonstrated that its commitments are substantive. China is taking tangible steps toward a fairer and more reasonable global governance system," she said.
Scholars from the Global South also have seen historical echoes in the initiatives.
"Some of the developed and developing countries have highly welcomed the Global Development Initiative, because this initiative emphasizes the need for partnerships -- partnerships that commit resources to end global poverty and pursue common and shared development. The Global Governance Initiative, in my view, echoes again the call that was made by Asian [and] African countries at the Bandung Conference in 1955 for equality, for mutual respect, for respect of territorial integrity, [and] for respect of sovereignty," said Bongani Maimele, director of international relations at South Africa's National School of Government.
"These initiatives are revolutionary in nature. They are reshaping the political philosophy of global governance. Today's world is far more complex than it was 80 years ago, and interdependence among nations has deepened. Therefore, we need new philosophical perspectives to examine our world and new models of engagement to foster a new type of international relations," said Sheradil Baktygulov, director of Kyrgyzstan's Institute of World Policy.
Int'l scholars praise Xi's initiatives, call for stronger multilateralism
