A cold wave has swept across northern parts of China this week, bringing snowy and foggy conditions and prompting local authorities to activate emergency plans to ensure public safety and maintain critical heating and transport services.
On Friday, dense fog and snowfall blanketed Shuangjingzi Township in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, leaving stretches of the G7 Beijing–Xinjiang Expressway slick, sharply reducing visibility, and forcing traffic to crawl. Local police stepped up patrols, accelerated safety checks, assisted drivers in checking anti-skid chains and heaters, and guided those unable to proceed safely into nearby parking areas.
Heavy snow also blocked several transport routes in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. As of noon on Friday, the heaviest snowfall was recorded in Xing’an Town, Arun Banner, with a cumulative total of 12.6 millimeters.
Local sanitation and urban management departments promptly began snow removal efforts to ensure safe and smooth travel for residents.
"Our company deployed over 400 personnel and 32 heavy-duty snowplows for the cleanup," Zhang Yongping, leader of the local snow removal team, said.
Ergun City in northeastern Inner Mongolia also experienced snowfall, with maximum snowfall reaching 5.8 millimeters.
Agricultural technicians provided on-site guidance to herders on reinforcing livestock sheds, laying insulation materials, and checking for safety hazards in older structures. Thanks to these efforts, local livestock production has remained stable and orderly amid the cold wave.
Hegang City in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province also experienced widespread snowfall. As of 19:00 Friday, snowfall had been recorded at 15 monitoring stations across the city, with Luobei County receiving the heaviest snowfall, reaching moderate to heavy levels in some areas.
The local urban management department responded swiftly, mobilizing large-scale snow removal machinery and personnel to clear snow and ice from streets.
According to the local meteorological department, the snowfall in Hegang has ended.
Heavy snow sweeps China’s northern regions, prompting emergency measures
China's online literature has captivated more global readers with the assistance of digital technology including AI translation and multimedia transformations.
Digitalization has been empowering the global expansion of China's online literature, with WebNovel, a leading Chinese online literature platform, becoming one of the beneficiaries.
In 2025, the platform has had more than 10,000 pieces of works translated by AI, with the scale of multilingual translation reaching 3.5 times that of last year.
AI-powered translation volume has grown by nearly 300 percent, with efficiency improving by a hundredfold and costs reduced by 90 percent.
"AI is quite handy when it comes to multilingual translation. Previously, we could only publish four books in a month, but now that number can hit 400, with good quality approved by overseas readers," said Wu Xuemei, head of overseas product operation with an online literature platform.
According to the 2024 China Online Literature Blue Book, by the end of 2024, China's online literature readership had swelled to 575 million, taking up 51.9 percent of the total netizen population.
Also in that year, the number of overseas readers of Chinese online literature reached 200 million, with 30 million newly registered users. Meanwhile, the revenue from the overseas market hit 4.815 billion yuan (about 674 million U.S. dollars), showing a year-on-year growth of 10.68 percent, demonstrating the industry's strong market resilience.
"We don't have enough life to read all of them, and many of them are very good," said a Mexican reader.
For now, Chinese online literature has evolved into a comprehensive industry ecosystem of significant scale and depth.
Its full-chain IP development has yielded notable achievements, while derivative formats such as audiobooks, comics, and animation have broadened the horizons of dissemination, shaping an integrated communication model of "text, audiovisual, and interaction".
"Chinese online literature has now reached a mature phase in its global expansion, characterized by a transformation from mere content export to a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing creation, translation, IP development, and local co-creation," said Tang Qiao, deputy director of the online literature research office with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Literature.
Digital technology helps Chinese online literature captivate global readers
