CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala broadcast promoted at event in Serbia

An event to promote China Media Group's (CMG) 2026 Spring Festival Gala broadcast was held in Belgrade, Serbia on Wednesday, with around 300 guests on hand to enjoy the festive atmosphere.

The "Prelude to the Spring Festival Gala - The World Watches the CMG Gala Together" event was jointly hosted by CMG, the Serbian Ministry of Culture and Information, the Chinese Embassy in Serbia, the Serbian Embassy in China, the China Cultural Center in Belgrade, and the Belt and Road Institute in Belgrade.

President of the National Assembly of Serbia Ana Brnabic attended the event along with several Serbian senior officials and Chinese Ambassador to Serbia Li Ming, who addressed the event.

Shen Haixiong, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and president of CMG, and Serbian Ambassador to China Maja Stefanovic also delivered speeches at the event via video link.

Shen vowed to present a cultural feast in 85 foreign languages to global audiences through the innovative application of "5G+4K/8K+AI" technologies.

During the event, Serbian singer Slobodan Tegula sang the Chinese folk song Jasmine Flower, and a group of Chinese-made humanoid robots performed a dance.

A promotional video for this year's Spring Festival Gala, highlights of the "China Travel with Chinese Films" initiative, a video about the China-built Hungary-Serbia railway, and a short documentary about staff working on a Belt and Road project watching the gala's promotional video were played during the event.

Reports on the event have been reprinted or quoted by several European media outlets, including Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), Politika, Tanjug, Euronews, RT, and Sputnik.

CMG has held "Prelude to the Spring Festival Gala" events around the world for three years in a row.

Recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's most-watched TV program, the Spring Festival Gala, also known as "Chunwan" in Chinese, has been a major cultural symbol for the Chinese New Year celebrations in China since its debut in 1983. On every Chinese New Year's Eve, families and friends across the country gather to enjoy a mixed show of songs, dances, comic sketches, operas, and folk arts, among other performances.

This year's Gala broadcast, ushering in the Year of the Horse, will begin at 20:00 Beijing time on Feb 16 and will be aired across multiple platforms, including CMG's 4K UHD channel, its 8K UHD channel, and various new media platforms.

The English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian-language channels of China Global Television Network (CGTN), along with 85 foreign language communication platforms, will cooperate with more than 3,300 overseas media outlets in over 200 countries and regions around the world to broadcast and report on the gala.

CMG 2026 Spring Festival Gala broadcast promoted at event in Serbia

China had completed 96 percent of the annual workload for the summer harvest as of Thursday, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

Data from the ministry shows that, apart from northwestern regions including Xinjiang and Gansu where harvesting is still underway, all major wheat-producing regions such as the southwest and the Huang-Huai-Hai region that encompasses parts of the Yellow River, Huaihe River and Haihe River basins have wrapped up their harvesting. This year's large-scale mechanized wheat harvest across China has essentially come to an end.

The nationwide mechanized summer wheat harvest kicked off on May 28, progressing swiftly from south to north. The bulk of the operation was completed within 22 days, two days faster than last year.

During the peak period from May 31 to June 13, the country averaged more than 16 million mu (about 1.07 million hectares) of daily harvest. In central China's Henan Province, one of the major wheat-producing regions, farmers harvested more than 10 million mu a day for three consecutive days, getting the crucial phase of the rush done in roughly a week.

Technology has been a key driver behind this efficiency. Beyond the use of BeiDou-based operation monitoring systems, this year's summer harvest has also seen the deployment of upgraded domestically produced combine harvesters, with wheeled models achieving a feed rate of 12 kilograms per second and tracked models reaching 9 kilograms per second.

Moreover, the loss rate for grain harvested by machines was kept within a favorable range of below 1 percent across most regions. In some fields across Henan and Anhui provinces, loss rates were even held to around 0.5 percent, providing strong support for securing a bumper summer grain harvest and ensuring China's stable annual food production.

This year, a number of wheat-producing regions received more rainfall than usual, posing challenges to harvest operations, while cross-regional coordination of harvest equipment and other resources helped mitigate the impact.

In mid-May, central Hubei province was hit by persistent heavy rains, leaving a harvest window of only about three days. In response, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs dispatched 13,000 combine harvesters from other regions to support the emergency effort.

Starting June 1, China officially entered its flood season. With the Huang-Huai-Hai region facing frequent showers and severe convection weather at the time, the ministry promptly issued early warnings and mobilized agricultural machinery service centers, regional emergency response centers, as well as emergency service teams to race against the rain and secure the harvest.

China's summer wheat harvest nears completion