Festive activities held across China to celebrate New Year holiday

From open-air fairs to sports events, an array of activities have been held across China to celebrate the start of 2026, creating a joyful atmosphere for New Year holiday revelers.

Beginning on the New Year's Day, 23 districts and counties in Chengdu, the capital city of southwest China's Sichuan Province, has launched more than 70 events with strong local characteristics, including banquets, folk performances, science and technology experience programs and fairs, to stimulate the vigor and vitality of holiday consumption. Organizers say the events will last until the end of the traditional Spring Festival holiday season in February.

So far during the New Year holiday season which will run until Saturday, the Xinjin District of Chengdu has organized an indoor fair and a large, open-air banquet, while the Wenjiang District of the city has held an open-air fair, featuring street foods and choir performances.

"Approximately 130 local enterprises have set up exhibition booths at the fair. We're expecting 120,000 to 130,000 tourist visits during the New Year holiday," said Wu Bo, deputy director of the publicity department of the Wenjiang District's Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee.

Meanwhile, cities in central China's Hubei Province have launched over 1,000 cultural, tourism, commerce and sporting events.

A shopping mall in the provincial capital city of Wuhan has set up a stage featuring an eight-meter-high installation with thousands of lanterns to illuminate the night.

Other cities including Xiangyang, Jingzhou, Shiyan and Xiaogan have launched promotional activities covering festive items, food and trendy toys, which has significantly driven up customer traffic and sales in shopping malls.

"We estimate that our shopping mall will receive more than 200,000 customer visits during the New Year holiday, with the sales expected to surpass 30 million yuan (about 4.29 million U.S. dollars)," said Li Tao, senior manager of a shopping mall.

Cities across north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have launched a variety of winter-themed activities.

In Arxan City, a five-a-side soccer tournament has been held on a snow-filled pitch, bringing together 14 teams of over 220 enthusiasts from Inner Mongolia and four neighboring provinces.

"I'm very happy that I can meet a lot of people who love soccer, and we are together welcoming the arrival of the New Year while enjoying sport," said Wang Lei, a soccer fan.

On the New Year's Day, an ice-and-snow themed park officially opened in Xilinhot City of the autonomous region, with massive snow and ice sculptures and dazzling firework displays being a feast for the eyes.

"I was impressed by the spectacular firework displays. This event makes everything more festive," said Ms. Zhao, a tourist.

Festive activities held across China to celebrate New Year holiday

China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.

Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.

Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.

"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.

China's development never a threat: FM spokesman