While people across China are enjoying their Dragon Boat Festival holiday, China Coast Guard vessels continued to patrol the waters of the South China Sea and remained on the frontline of maritime rights protection and law enforcement.
The Dragon Boat Festival, also known as the Duanwu Festival, is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. This year, the festival falls on June 19, with the three-day holiday running through June 21.
During the holiday, several Coast Guard ships have maintained round-the-clock duty in key waters including areas near Huangyan Dao and the Nansha Islands. Aboard the Coast Guard vessel, Coast Guard officers have remained fixed on radar screens and been fully alert, leaving no room for complacency.
"Alongside our routine law enforcement patrols, we have also carried out a series of specialized training exercises. The situation on the front line of maritime rights protection can change rapidly. Only with thorough preparation and repeated training can we respond calmly at critical moments," said Shi Junwen, a Coast Guard officer. The ship's galley prepared sticky rice and bamboo leaves early, while crew members gathered together to wrap various styles of zongzi, the sticky rice dumplings traditionally eaten during the Festival.
"I called home before we departed and told them I couldn't return for Dragon Boat Festival. There's no signal in our mission area. It would be a lie to say I don't miss home, but once we put on this uniform, protecting these waters is our duty," said Chen Lingzhen, another Coast Guard officer.
China Coast Guard maintains vigilance in South China Sea during Dragon Boat Festival
An advanced casting 3D printing enterprise from northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region has successfully landed in Nan'an City in east China's Fujian Province, showcasing a model of deep industrial synergy under the Fujian-Ningxia collaboration program.
Fujian and Ningxia are marking the 30th anniversary of their pairing-up program, an initiative launched in 1996 to boost common development through shared resources and expertise.
At a workshop of a smart casting factory in Nan'an, a county-level city under the administration of Quanzhou City, eight 3D printing machines from Ningxia's Kocel Company have been deployed to boost local machinery and equipment manufacturing.
Headquartered in Yinchuan City of Ningxia, Kocel operates one of China's leading intelligent foundry factories using full-process 3D printing technology. Over 2,000 km down the south, Quanzhou boasts a complete machinery and equipment industrial chain with an annual output value exceeding 100 billion yuan.
In 2023, under the collaboration mechanism between the two regions, Kocel established its latest-generation of casting 3D printing smart factory in Quanzhou's Nan'an City, fully leveraging the advanced high-end manufacturing expertise from Ningxia and the whole industrial chain in Fujian.
"The casting 3D printing smart factory of Kocel has filled the technological gap in casting 3D printing in Nan'an City. Meanwhile, the project leverages Fujian's industrial resources to improve the downstream supporting industries for Ningxia's equipment manufacturing sector, so that the two regions have achieved mutual access to each other's industrial resources, supporting and strengthening industrial chains for both sides," said Huang Ziya, director of the Industry and Information Technology Bureau of Nan'an City.
Meanwhile, Fujian's well-developed machinery and equipment industrial chain has not only brought substantial orders for the high-tech company from Ningxia, but also offered diverse application scenarios to drive continuous technological advancement and application innovation.
"Many of the parts ordered by local enterprises [in Quanzhou] are quite complex, which places much higher requirements for our production and drives us to continuously improve. By relying on the local industrial chain, we now not only sell products but also provide entire production lines. Since we started production here in 2023, our output value has been growing steadily," said Shi Qingming, assistant general manager of Quanzhou Kocel Intelligent Foundry Industry Innovation Center.
Ningxia’s 3D printing casting technology takes root in Fujian
