Travelers embrace cultural, natural tourism during Qingming Festival holiday

The three-day Qingming Festival holiday has witnessed a surge in tourism across China, with travelers embracing a diverse range of experiences from natural landscapes to historical sites and cultural experiences.

Many destinations incorporated new technologies and innovative approaches to enhance the visitor experience.

Two Buddhist cave complexes along the ancient Silk Road in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region opened to the public for the first time on Saturday.

The Ya'er Lake Grottoes, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site in the city of Turpan, welcomed visitors following a year of restoration work and digital upgrades.

Formerly serving as a monastery, the grottoes are composed of 22 caves dating back to the fifth century and containing Buddhist murals and inscriptions in multiple languages, including Chinese and Old Uygur.

Visitors can now have a glimpse of the original colors of the faded murals through AR technology.

"I was truly amazed. The restoration work is incredible. The restored murals are so vivid and detailed, bringing these precious cultural relics back to life," said Yang Shiyu, a tourist from Hubei Province, central China.

Some 40 km away, four caves of the Shengjinkou Grottoes in Turpan also opened to the public on Saturday, set to offer 300 visitor slots per day. The Shengjinkou site has 13 caves dating back to the seventh century, where murals, woodware, pottery, fabrics and paintings on silk have been unearthed.

Meanwhile, the pleasant spring weather drew crowds to Pinglu County in north China's Shanxi Province to admire the blossoming peach trees. There are also entertaining activities for visitors to relish the atmosphere.

"The thousands of peach trees are very beautiful. There's drum performance and other activities. I'm so happy to be here," said Chao Herong, a visitor.

In a scenic spot of east China's Anhui Province, humanoid robots have stolen the limelight as they were deployed for security patrols. Tourists were seen interacting, shaking hands, and taking photos with them.

"It's my first time to see robots in a scenic area. It's very novel to experience the technology. My child has had a great time interacting with the robots," said Liu Jia, a visitor.

Wuyi Mountain Nature Reserve in Fujian Province, which boasts one of the world's most significant subtropical forests, welcomed over 32,000 visitors in the first two days of the holiday.

While immersing in the natural scenery of Mount Wuyi, over 12,000 spectators have enjoyed a live performance which turned the natural landscape into a theater stage.

Qingming Festival, which falls on April 4 this year, is a traditional Chinese festival for people to pay tribute to the dead and worship their ancestors. The holiday provides a short break for Chinese citizens as they engage in outdoor activities and sightseeing.

Travelers embrace cultural, natural tourism during Qingming Festival holiday

The universal "reciprocal tariffs" imposed by the United States signals a decline in the U.S. economic dominance and dollar hegemony, as the country is attempting to extract excessive financial benefits from its trading partners, according to economists, who warn the Trump administration is playing a "dangerous game".

U.S. President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order on the so-called "reciprocal tariffs," imposing a 10-percent "minimum baseline tariff" before unveiling higher rates on certain trading partners. The policy sent shockwaves throughout the global economy and triggered panic on financial markets, with analysts warning of significant risks and dire economic consequences.

In an interview with the China Global Television Network (CGTN), Hong Hao, chief economist of the GROW Investment Group, a Shanghai-based hedge fund, said the tariffs reflect Trump's strategy to extract economic benefits from trading partners, particularly viewing China as a significant competitor. "Trump really believes that the trade terms with the trading partners have been unfair to the U.S., and as a result, the U.S. manufacturing sector has been hollowed out. Therefore, the U.S. is paying an excessive price for globalization, and now, it's time to pay back. I think, from this angle, he is trying to extract economic rent from its trading partners, and also he is trying to see China as one of the major U.S. rivals at this juncture. So, I think, as a result, he is playing a very dangerous game. And, as you can see, it's political theater in the sense that he is trying to dramatize the extreme pressure, so that he can get excessive rent from the opponent," he said

Trump's unilateral imposition of tariffs has eroded global confidence in the U.S. and its dollar's status, leading many to state that the American hegemony may not persist, according to Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University.

"The U.S. economy is at an inflection point. There is a moment where the previous strategies being used to sustain American hegemony were no longer working. And, it's only a matter of time before the U.S. position erodes, given the fact that it's been a house of cards built on the dollar supremacy. And a lot of people don't see that as having a brighter future. This has moved past the theater stage and has moved really directly into one in which no one really has confidence in the U.S. anymore. No one has confidence in the dollar. No one has confidence in the U.S. being committed to the multilateral system, to global trade and so forth and so on," he said.

Trump playing "dangerous game" as tariff measures signal decline in U.S. dollar hegemony: economists