By Yao Xueqing, People’s Daily

Along the coast of Yancheng, Jiangsu province in east China lies what many call a “paradise for migratory birds.” Each year, millions of birds from around the world stop here to rest, molt, and overwinter, drawing roughly one million visitors who follow in their wake.

This is the Tiaozini wetland, situated in the Dongtai Coastal Economic Zone of Yancheng, Jiangsu province. As an important part of the Yellow Sea Wetland, one of the world’s largest intertidal wetland systems, the Tiaozini wetland covers an area of 86,000 hectares and serves as a key node along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway.

In recent years, local authorities have implemented measures such as shoreline restoration, ecological governance, and the creation of high-tide roosting sites for migratory birds, steadily expanding the “circle of feathered friends.”  

This commitment to harmonious coexistence between humans and nature has spurred the growth of bird-watching tourism. The region is now pursuing a high-quality development path that successfully links ecological protection with tourism growth and increased local prosperity.

Each April, the wetland comes alive as spring migration begins. At a monitoring center, wetland manager Zhang Hailong tracks bird movements and breeding patterns. “In recent years, we’ve introduced smart monitoring systems,” he explained. “At what we call the ‘720 Highland,’ we’ve installed 13 panoramic cameras equipped with AI-powered bird recognition, allowing us to monitor bird activities around the clock.”

What exactly is the “720 Highland?” “During the twice-daily high tides, the mudflats are submerged, and birds that feed there need a place to rest,” said Du Hua, head of the administrative committee of Dongtai Coastal Economic Zone.

Starting in 2020, the area transformed a 720-mu (about 48 hectares) former fishpond into an elevated roosting site by reshaping the terrain and restoring wetland ecology, following the principle of prioritizing natural recovery with moderate human intervention. The site effectively serves as a “tarmac” for migratory birds, a fixed high-tide refuge. In the autumn of that year, it hosted as many as 58,000 waterbirds in a single day.

In 2022, restoration efforts expanded to Chuanshui Bay in the northern part of Tiaozini, where aquaculture ponds were converted back into wetlands, creating a larger version of the original habitat. The improved ecosystem has attracted not only large numbers of waterbirds but also wildlife such as milu deer and hares. By December 2025, the Tiaozini area had recorded 420 bird species, including 23 under first-class state-level protection and 74 under second-class state-level protection.

A sightseeing bus service operates regularly along a coastal tourism highway, traveling into the depths of the Tiaozini wetland and stopping beside a lake-like expanse. Amidst interweaving bird calls of varying pitches, large flocks of waterbirds are seen foraging and pacing. 

“That one with the spoon-shaped bill and black face is the black-faced spoonbill. And the elegant black-and-white bird with the upturned bill is the pied avocet,” said bird guide Ding Jianming, effortlessly identifying species for 20 families participating in a bird-watching study tour.

Nearby, a science exhibition hall offers visitors a deeper understanding of coastal evolution through videos and specimen displays.

Stepping outside at low tide, visitors were treated to a spectacular scene: flocks of birds taking off from the “720 Highland” and flying toward the exposed mudflats to feed. 

“It’s breathtaking,” said Pan Jing, a tourist from Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province. “I discovered this hidden gem last autumn and brought my whole family here this spring.”

“The Yellow Sea mudflats have become a ‘goldmine’ for eco-tourism,” said Chang Wei, deputy director of the administrative committee of the Dongtai Coastal Economic Zone. 

Leveraging its ecological assets, the region is diversifying its offerings. It has established a professional bird-watching system, including curated routes, high-powered binoculars, trained interpreters, and expert bird guides, as well as immersive virtual reality and 3D experiences. Concurrently, it is expanding eco-tourism formats by introducing bird-watching competitions, photography tours, and sporting events such as wetland cycling races, triathlons and half marathons. . This blend of nature, culture, and sport shifts the focus from simple sightseeing to multi-dimensional experiences.

The result is a year-round tourism calendar: bird-watching in spring, coastal foraging in summer, photography camps in autumn, and flamingo spotting in winter. Today, Tiaozini attracts around 1 million visitors annually.

As bird-watching tourism takes off, local communities are also reaping the benefits.

Badou village in Jianggang township, just north of Tiaozini, is now a lush and picturesque destination. 64-year-old Kong Xiangjin comes from a long line of fishermen. In 2021, he renovated an unused house and opened a guesthouse called “Old Fisherman’s Inn,” which has since seen steadily growing business.

A few years ago, the village has also set up a tourism company. In addition to livestream e-commerce, it has introduced souvenir gift boxes featuring local delicacies such as marinated shrimp and raw pickled crab. 

More recently, it has developed creative cultural products inspired by the wetland, such as canvas bags themed on local clams, power banks modeled after mud snails, and T-shirts featuring the endangered spoon-billed sandpiper.

“Eco-tourism has opened up a new path for boosting rural incomes,” says Liu Jun, Party head of Jianggang township. With homestays as a key driver, the township has expanded related industries including local dining, cultural merchandise, and specialty agricultural products. 

Today, more than 1,500 people in the township are engaged in tourism, and in 2025, the township welcomed over 100,000 visitors, generating more than 5 million yuan ($733,327) in additional income for local residents.

By Fang Min, Jiang Xuehong, People’s Daily

China has taken a major step forward in mobile healthcare by launching a domestically developed “flying eye hospital,” bringing high-quality ophthalmic services directly to patients in need. The initiative represents a new model of integrated air-ground medical support, designed to extend advanced care to remote and underserved areas.

On the morning of Dec. 18, 2025, at Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport in Zhengzhou, central China’s Henan province, a homegrown C909 aircraft emblazoned with the words Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center Flying Eye Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University was parked quietly on the tarmac. Inside, instead of rows of passenger seats, the cabin had been transformed into a fully functional ophthalmic surgical suite.

Maintained at a constant temperature of 22 degrees Celsius, the cabin was divided into a waiting area, a buffer zone, and an operating room. It was equipped with surgical microscopes, sterile workstations, patient monitors, and remote consultation terminals, forming a standard ophthalmic operating environment adapted for aviation conditions.

“We spent three years refining the system to meet the standards of a ground-based operating room,” said Lin Haotian, director of the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center and president of the flying eye hospital. “Not only is the equipment comprehensive, but the standards are rigorous. Before any procedure, the cabin undergoes multiple rounds of surface and air sterilization, followed by at least two rounds of testing over 48 hours to ensure compliance.”

That morning, a patient surnamed Huang, who had developed a cataract due to eye trauma and was experiencing impaired vision and difficulty walking independently, was assisted into the operating room. The surgical team reassured him throughout the procedure, which lasted just 15 minutes.

When the bandage was removed, Huang cautiously opened his eye and quickly realized he could see again. The success of the operation marked the first cataract surgery performed aboard a domestically produced aircraft, underscoring China’s progress in building a flexible, mobile healthcare infrastructure.

“I never imagined I would have surgery on a plane,” Huang said, standing on his own and taking in the cabin around him. “It was fast and effective. I can see again. Thank you!”

According to Lin, ophthalmic procedures are particularly well suited to mobile medical platforms due to their relatively short duration and the high level of equipment integration required. 

In some of the remote regions in China, geographic constraints and limited access to advanced medical facilities have long prevented patients from receiving timely eye care, sometimes resulting in avoidable vision loss. The airborne hospital offers a solution by rapidly delivering specialized services to where they are most needed.

The concept of an airborne hospital is not unfamiliar in China. In 1982, an aircraft operated by the international nonprofit organization Orbis International visited China, introducing advanced medical equipment and expertise that profoundly influenced Chinese ophthalmologists. This experience planted a seed of aspiration: China would one day develop its own flying eye hospital.

Realizing this vision required coordinated efforts, from equipping the aircraft with a 5G-enabled mobile eye clinic system and assembling trained flight crews, to ensuring ground support and building a professional operations team. Today, that vision has entered clinical application.

Following the successful operation in Zhengzhou, the flying eye hospital quickly moved into broader use. 

On March 19, 2026, specialists from the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center performed eight sight-restoring surgeries aboard the aircraft for residents of Qionghai in south China’s Hainan province. Prior to the surgeries, a 5G-enabled mobile screening vehicle was dispatched to local townships, conducting preliminary examinations for more than 600 people. Patients requiring surgery completed pre-operative checks at local hospitals before boarding the aircraft.

Among the first beneficiaries were elderly patients with limited mobility. For them, the flying hospital brought specialized care directly to their communities, demonstrating the tangible impact of AI-integrated mobile healthcare.

Looking ahead, the domestically developed C909 flying eye hospital will continue serving remote regions across China. Plans include extending operations overseas to deliver vision care to underserved populations while collaborating with local institutions to enhance ophthalmic capabilities through training and technology transfer.

By Bao Han, People’s Daily

According to rankings released by OpenRouter, a global aggregation platform for large-language models, Chinese large-language models have outperformed their overseas counterparts in usage for a full month. 

In the most recent week (March 30 to April 4), Chinese models took the top six spots among the global top 10, with total token calls reaching 12.27 trillion. This is no fleeting spike, but a sustained trend.

Before going further, it is worth unpacking a technical term that has recently entered the public conversation: the token. A token is the smallest unit of information processed by large models. It can be measured, priced, and traded. Every Chinese character input, every line of generated code, and every image recognized, all consume tokens.

If the industrial era was defined by petroleum, and the internet age by traffic, then the AI era is defined by token usage. It serves as a key barometer of the development of the AI industry.

In March this year, China’s daily token usage exceeded 140 trillion, equivalent to processing the entire holdings of roughly 250 National Libraries of China in a single day. Even more striking is the growth rate: since early 2024, when token usage stood at 100 billion, China has achieved a thousand-fold increase in just over two years. China has undoubtedly become one of the most active countries in the world for AI applications.

What fuels this extraordinary growth? Three fundamental pillars stand out.

The first is a solid foundation of power supply. AI development fundamentally depends on electricity. China possesses the world’s largest and most advanced power supply system, with total installed capacity reaching 3.95 billion kilowatts and a continuously expanding share of clean energy. Converting watts efficiently into tokens is essential. Without power, AI simply cannot function.

The second is China’s strength in computing power. Superior computing infrastructure accelerates token processing and reduces unit costs, while advanced algorithms enhance output quality and increase token utilization frequency. 

National initiatives such as “Eastern Data, Western Computing” and coordinated computing-power systems have built a robust computing network. Continued breakthroughs by technology companies in inference chips and model architectures mean that Chinese large models are not only capable, but also more efficient and cost-effective.

The third is a sound application ecosystem. Tokens serve as the bridge between technological supply and real-world demand. From financial risk control and cross-border e-commerce operations to short-video generation, tokens are being transformed into tangible productivity. 

Behind a daily token call volume in the hundreds of trillions lies a vast array of high-frequency, large-scale and sustainable commercial applications, forming a virtuous cycle of data supply and value realization.

Some analysts have noted that China is building a competitive advantage in what can be called the “token economy,” laying out the entire value chain from energy and computing power to models and applications.

When assessing China’s AI competitiveness through the lens of the token economy, it is clear that the country’s strength lies not in fleeting competition over scale, but in persistent long-termism.

China has laid out clear targets: by 2027, it aims to promote the in-depth application of 3 to 5 general large models in manufacturing and roll out 1,000 high-level industrial intelligent agents.

The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) has explicitly called for the full implementation of the “AI Plus” initiative to empower all industries across the board.

Furthermore, the government work report has underscored goals to forge new forms of smart economy and advance the large-scale commercial application of AI in key sectors.

Taken together, these form a cohesive strategic blueprint with sustained policy momentum, painting a broad and promising picture for China’s AI development.

Another emerging consensus is that China’s approach to open source is becoming an important force in shaping the global AI technology stack. Large models such as DeepSeek have been made open to the world, helping support digital infrastructure development in Africa and providing solutions such as industrial visual inspection for factories in Southeast Asia. 

From open-source models to shared capabilities, this collaborative approach not only accelerates the evolution of China’s AI industry, but also empowers the global innovation ecosystem and promotes more inclusive access to technology.

In this long run toward the future, China is not developing itself behind closed doors, but is committed to a people-centered, AI-for-good vision featuring fairness, inclusiveness and collaborative governance. China’s response to the intelligent era is inscribed in every dynamic, pulsing token.