China sets annual national reading week starting from 2026

The State Council of China gave its consent on Wednesday to set the fourth week of April each year as the country's reading week, according to information from the website of the Chinese government.

Starting from 2026, the national reading week activities will be organized under the guidance of by the National Press and Publication Administration along with relevant departments.

By the end of 2024, there had been 3,248 public libraries holding 1.5 billion books across China, according to data from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Friday that the China-Canada relationship has set sail again.

Wang made the remarks during talks with his Canadian counterpart Anita Anand in Ottawa.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that under the strategic guidance of the leaders of both nations, exchanges and cooperation across various fields have fully resumed, with the main economic and trade concerns of both sides having been properly resolved.

He voiced hope of working with the Canadian side to explore the path for advancing the China-Canada new strategic partnership and make good preparations for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's upcoming trip to China to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting, so as to ensure that bilateral relations move forward along a sound, stable and sustainable track.

Wang said that the ups and downs of China-Canada relations over the years have provided the most important revelation that the two sides should commit to mutual respect, and seek common ground while shelving differences, upholding strategic autonomy and win-win cooperation.

Wang said that China is ready to work with Canada to deepen cooperation in fields such as energy, finance and law enforcement, and that Canada is welcome to participate in the China International Import Expo as the country of honor.

For her part, Anand said that Canada attaches great importance to its relations with China, and that Canada firmly adheres to the one-China policy and has set a goal of increasing exports to China by 50 percent by 2030.

During their talks, the two sides agreed to establish a strategic dialogue mechanism between Chinese and Canadian foreign ministers, and restart political and security consultations between the foreign ministries, as well as the high-level national security and rule of law dialogue.