Various folk activities have been held in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and southwest China's Yunnan Province to celebrate the Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival.
The Spring Festival, China's most important holiday marked by family reunions, festive foods and New Year wishes, fell on Tuesday this year. The nine-day holiday period starting from Sunday is now in full swing.
In a park in Xinjiang's Manas County, folk dancers dressed in traditional clothes presented a captivating show, drawing viewers to join during the holiday.
In addition to performances, nice local food was also prepared to treat visitors.
"This place is bustling with people, just like what I saw during the Spring Festival when I was a child. It's cheerful. It's really great. And people can enjoy ethnic specialty -- dishes cooked in large pots, which taste pretty good," said Cai Linghua, a tourist.
Various performances were also held to entertain travelers in Yunnan's Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture during the holiday.
Local people from the Lisu ethnic group in traditional clothes gathered to sing folk songs along the Nujiang river.
Another breathtaking performance was knife-ladder-climbing, in which participants climbed a structure made of wooden planks affixed with sharp knives.
"It is made of knives. It is dozens of meters high. People climb up step by step, and every step is a knife. It's spectacular. It is the first time I have ever seen anything like this," said Guo Yun, a tourist.
China's Xinjiang, Yunnan embrace Spring Festival with various folk activities
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
