As the Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival, is around the corner, craftsmen across China are busy making traditional lanterns which serve as an important cultural symbol during the grandest traditional annual holiday.
At the Beijing Fine Arts Red Lantern Factory, master craftsmen are racing against time to fulfill orders for lantern making for the Spring Festival. Beijing palace lanterns are made with a wooden frame, inlaid with silk or glass and painting. Adorned with tassels, Chinese knots, and other decorations, they are a typical representative of traditional Chinese art. The entire lantern-making process relies on mortise and tenon joints, assembled without a single nail.
"Making this palace lantern requires the supply of more than 100 pieces of wood and involves hundreds of work processes. Therefore, our lantern making is inseparable from ancient architecture," said Zhai Yuliang, a representative inheritor to Beijing palace lanterns.
As a representative of lantern craftsmanship from areas south of the Yangtze River, the "needle-piercing" technique of the Haining Xiashi lantern making from east China's Zhejiang Province is particularly exquisite, with thousands of needle holes outlining beautiful patterns on Xuan paper as thin as cicada wings.
"Through needles, we integrate traditional Chinese painting, calligraphy and seal carving into our work, along with other arts. Under the illumination of nighttime lights, it creates a truly magical effect, almost close to the Wanyanluo lantern (a splendid lantern for imperial use)," said Shou Binjie, a representative inheritor to the craftsmanship.
In south China's Guangdong Province, the traditional Chaozhou lanterns are mainly classified into two categories: painted vertical screen lanterns and hanging lanterns. They integrate in them various patterns of intangible cultural heritage elements such as the Chaozhou opera and Chaozhou embroidery, making a truly comprehensive art form.
"The most distinctive feature of Chaozhou lanterns is their capability of story telling. Through precise depiction of characters' costumes, expressions and movements, as well as recreation of the scenery, the stories from books and operas are vividly presented to the audience, allowing the spiritual and cultural connotations behind these stories to be passed down through lanterns," said Ding Chujie, director of the Cultural Center of Xiangqiao District, Chaozhou City.
Chinese craftsmen busy making traditional lanterns ahead of Spring Festival
Officials and business leaders form China and Finland on Monday signed new agreements and pledged deeper trade ties in Beijing during Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's ongoing visit to China.
The 6th China-Finland Committee for Innovative Business Cooperation Meeting, a long-standing cooperation mechanism aimed at linking the two countries' companies, capital and innovation, was co-hosted by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
The gathering brought together representatives from the government and business sectors spanning the fields of energy, manufacturing, aviation, healthcare and sustainability.
Orpo, who arrived in the Chinese capital on the previous day, said he hopes his visit will "open doors to Finnish companies" and the meeting was primarily about matchmaking -- connecting policy priorities with real business needs and turning cooperation into concrete projects.
"We have a rather small scale, here we can see the scale, whether it's about the patient numbers, manufacturing services, or equity values," said Juha Yrjanheikki, CEO of Aurealis Therapeutics, a cell and gene therapy platform company.
"More and more of the most innovative solutions, whether it's to do with how we work or how our products work, we see them coming more and more from China," said Jussi Herlin, vice chair of board of directors of Kone Corporation, a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry.
"China has always been an important market for us -- for the Finnish companies, because it's a huge market. So if you manage to be successful here with your technology, then you can compete all over the world," said Timo Vuori, vice president of the Confederation of Finnish Industries.
In a speech at the meeting, Orpo said his visit also sends a broader signal of commitment to cooperation, even as global trade faces rising uncertainties.
"Finland and China enjoy stable and long-standing relations. Over these years of collaboration, trade relations between our countries have grown steadily. China has become a very important market for Finnish businesses. To truly flourish, we must together preserve the shared rules-based trade system. It provides the predictability and confidence needed for companies to expand their partnership and pursue sustainable growth," said the prime minister.
In his speech, Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao outlined how cooperation between the two sides has translated into concrete outcomes.
"Our bilateral trade topped eight billion U.S. dollars in 2025, with two-way investment stock exceeding 23 billion dollars. During today's meeting, companies from both countries engaged in active exchanges and enthusiastic cooperation, signing over 10 cooperation agreements," said Wang.
China and Finland pedge deeper trade ties at Beijing business meeting during Orpo's Visit
