Chongli, former competition venue for Olympic Winter Games in north China's Hebei Province, is gearing up for the ski season while exploring to become a year-round appeal offering spring flowers, summer cool weather and resort town experience.
In Chongli, mid-October to early November marks the transition period for ski resorts. Staff use this window period to complete artificial snow-making and ski equipment check, preparing for the forthcoming skiing season.
"After the end of the National Day holiday, we immediately started the early preparations for the entire snow season, striving to welcome ski lovers and tourists at an early date. The most important thing so far is our snow-making preparations," said Zou Zhongqiao, deputy general manager of Ski Resort Fulong.
To improve snow-making efficiency, the entire ski resort has set up 15 meteorological observation points across different areas. Weather data is transmitted to staff's mobile screens every five minutes in real time.
"For example, the temperature varies in valleys and hilltops, at the foot of the hill and at the mountain top even during the same time period. The humidity conditions are also different. During the snow-making window period, we decide whether to turn on and off the snow-makers based on different mountain massif conditions, climatic conditions at different points, so as to finish the snow-making job of the entire mountain within the shortest time," Zou said.
Resource recycling also helps reduce snow-making costs. An artificial lake, holding 100,000 cubic meters of water just 50 meters from the ski resort, collects melted snow from summer. This water is then used for snow-making in winter.
Creating a skiing brand is just one aspect of Chongli's tourism development. The area is currently focusing on an integrated development mode featuring sports, culture, and tourism to promote year-round leisure.
Chongli district government established the Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and TV, Tourism and Sports in April this year to cope with integrated development trend.
"This year, we will hold more than 430 events spanning from sports events, study tours and cultural-themed performances. For a contestant, he or she is normally accompanied by two to three family members, which will boost local hotels, dining, entertainment and shopping businesses. For tourists visiting a resort town, their eating, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, and entertainment are all sorted in the town. With the integration of sports, culture, and tourism, we can not only address tourists' concerns more quickly but provide stronger overall service," said Wu Yun, deputy director of Chongli Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and TV, Tourism and Sports.
Winter Olympic town builds all-season fun place other than skiing
A Chinese envoy on Tuesday said at the 79th session of the Third Committee of United Nations General Assembly that China firmly opposes and totally rejects groundless accusations by a few Western countries regarding China's human rights situation.
During a general debate on human rights issues at the UN headquarters in New York, a number of countries voiced support for China's just stance and opposed the politicization of human rights issues.
The representative of Pakistan made a joint statement on behalf of 80 countries including China, emphasizing that the affairs of Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Xizang are China's internal affairs.
"Respect for sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of states, and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states represent basic norms governing international relations. Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Xizang related issues are China's internal affairs. We oppose politicization of human rights and double standards, or interference in states' internal affairs under the pretext of human rights," said Munir Akram, Pakistan's permanent representative to UN.
Fu Cong, China's permanent representative to the UN, said that Australia and the United States, among others, resorted again to lies to provoke confrontations, which China firmly opposes and totally rejects.
"The human rights situation that should gather the most attention at the Committee this year is undoubtedly that of Gaza. Australia and the United States, among a few others, have downplayed this living hell, while unleashing attacks and smears against the peaceful and tranquil Xinjiang. They have once again refreshed the world's understanding of double standards. This revealed, once again, the true intentions of Australia and the United States to use human rights as a pretext to interfere in China's internal affairs and curb its development, and to broadly suppress developing countries that adhere to an independent and autonomous foreign policy," said Fu.
If the death of more than 40,000 civilians in Gaza and the starvation and the displacement of millions of women and children are not enough to awake the conscience of a few Western countries including Australia and the United States, prompting them to stop sending weapons and ammunition that have claimed the lives of countless Palestinian civilians, then their professed protection of human rights of Muslims is nothing but the biggest lie, said Fu.
The 80 countries, including a large number of Muslim countries, issued a joint statement in support of China, clearly opposing the interference in the internal affairs of other countries under the pretext of human rights. This fully shows that the hypocrisy of Australia, the United States, and a few others in politicizing and weaponizing human rights issues has long been seen through, that the plot of using Xinjiang to contain China has long gone bankrupt, and that the sinister intention of using anti-China rhetorics to contain China and to provoke confrontations has completely failed, said Fu.
The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly is mainly focused on discussing human rights and social development issues.
Since 2019, a few Western countries, including the United States, have repeatedly attacked and smeared China by exploiting so-called human rights issues, but their efforts have been strongly opposed by the overwhelming majority of countries, and have all ended in failure.
Chinese envoy refutes accusations of China's human rights situation by few Western countries
