Major US port city hosts grand Chinese New Year celebration

Long Beach, a major port city in the United States, last weekend hosted the largest Chinese New Year celebration in Southern California, an event that organizers said reflects the city's decades-long commitment to bridging cultures and fostering trade partnerships across the Pacific.

The celebration staged music and dance performances featuring diverse Asian traditions and drew nearly 15,000 attendees.

"We have a lot of people coming in. They have a very diverse background. Again, our sister city of Long Beach, our goal is to promote peace, is to bring people together, and that's what it is all about. Today, we have a very diverse performance," said Richer San, board chairman of the Sister Cities of Long Beach.

With a population of nearly half a million, Long Beach is the second-busiest port city in the U.S. and home to numerous companies and business organizations with close ties to Asian trade partners, especially China.

"We're awfully pleased to have such good relationships with our port cities. Many of our sister cities are also port cities, particularly our China's Qingdao Port, and we just celebrated our 40th anniversary with our Chinese sister city, Qingdao, we happened to go there with the mayor during the Qingdao beer festival. Were we happy or what?" said Susan Redfield, president of the Sister Cities of Long Beach.

A sister city relationship was established in 1985 between Long Beach and Qingdao, a major coastal city in eastern China. These decades-long ties are helping both port cities navigate the challenges of a complex global landscape, work furthered by the Long Beach-Qingdao Association, which was founded the same year.

"I'm awfully grateful that we have such good relationships with our port, with our other port cities, particularly with regard to commercial trade, and at this particular time in our country, it's been a challenge, and we're awfully grateful that it looks like things are looking up. We have a lot of resiliency with our businesses here, and we're growing and expanding them, particularly with Cambodia and other cities, and always with China, of course," Redfield said.

Major US port city hosts grand Chinese New Year celebration

Major US port city hosts grand Chinese New Year celebration

China's Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship has entered its designated orbit after successfully blasting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center late on Sunday night.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site in the country's northwest at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

About 10 minutes after launch, the spaceship separated from the rocket and has now entered its designated orbit as it prepares for the docking procedure with the Tiangong space station.

The mission's three crew members, including commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, are in good condition, while the launch was declared a complete success by Li Benqi from the launch center.

The Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast, automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station's Tianhe core module, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

After completing a handover of the Tiangong space station with the Shenzhou-21 crew, the Shenzhou-23 astronauts will start their mission, and one of them will conduct a one-year in-orbit stay, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

Notably, astronaut Lai Ka-ying is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.

China successfully sends Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship into designated orbit