Even though Chinese Americans have been living in the US for more than 175 years, "we are still seen as perpetual foreigners," said the president of an elite group promoting China-US ties, who called for the federal state, local government and communities to do more to defy long-held stereotypes.

Dongguan in South China's Guangdong Province said it will issue red envelopes worth a total of 500 million yuan ($78.88 million) for non-local employees who choose to stay in the city during the upcoming Spring Festival holidays, joining other cities making similar offers amid the latest Omicron outbreak.

Local police in Beijing's Fangshan district are investigating an operator of a wholesale food department surnamed Yang who is suspected of replacing the import labels of seafood products with domestic logos in order to escape supervision for cold-chain products, potentially risking spreading the coronavirus, according to media reports.

An investigation report, by an investigation team under China's State Council on the deadly flood in Zhengzhou last summer, was released on Friday, and Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committees of the Communist Party of China's Henan Provincial Committee and Zhengzhou's Party chief, was demoted and given disciplinary punishment, after the investigation report found that he failed his duties in dealing with the disaster.

As the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) is sending its largest-ever athlete delegation to the Winter Olympics, which is composed of two alpine skiers and one short-track speed skater, Kenneth Fok Kai-kong, vice president of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Friday that their participation in the Winter Olympics is expected to inspire enthusiasm of Hong Kong youth for ice sports and provide opportunities for exchanges with national team athletes.

The Ministry of Transport and the Beijing municipal government jointly held an emergency response drill under extreme conditions including snow or a major traffic incident during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, media reported Friday, while Beijing opened special lanes exclusive for Olympic vehicles .

The latest round of epidemic in Beijing involving 23 local COVID-19 cases so far was caused by two different sources of infection, with one from international mail caused by Omicron variant and the other from imported cold-chain goods infected by Delta strain, Beijing authorities said on Friday. The city's Party chief on Friday called for the fastest and most effective measures to curb the epidemic.

The missing son of a migrant worker in Beijing who was defined as a silent carrier of COVID-19 was found dead in August 2020, but the boy's parents refused to accept the result of DNA identification, police from Weihai, East China's Shandong, hometown of the worker, announced on Friday, with the story of the worker touching many Chinese netizens.

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games unveiled on Friday that there will be about 1,200 torch bearers for the Winter Olympic Games and about 600 torch bearers for the Paralympic Games, among them the eldest is 86 years and the youngest is 14.

Beijing welcomed its first snow of 2022 on Thursday, boosting the overall atmosphere for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. All the Winter Olympics-themed scenes along Chang'an Avenue were lit up on Thursday night with official mascots appearing along the avenue with hundreds of flower beds and giant Chinese knot standing in Tiananmen Square.

A folk and winter sport's fusion concert took place in Beijing on Wednesday to celebrate the Chinese New Year and the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.

Beijing now requires workers in the imported cold chain food industry to hold COVID-19 nucleic acid negative test certificates within three days, instead of the previous seven days, as the capital city strengthens epidemic prevention measures amid the recent flare-up.

Products from Xinjiang become hot sellers as consumers show support amid Western attacksRed socks made of cotton from China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with images of a tiger (the zodiac for 2022), delicious apples and walnuts from Aksu Prefecture, Chinese dates from Hotan Prefecture, raisins from Turpan City... Chinese people are enthusiastic about adding these products from Xinjiang to their shopping lists for the upcoming Spring Festival this year, not only to support the region's economic development but also to respond to the rampant hyping of disinformation on Xinjiang by the US and West.

After more than 30 years of implementing its one-child policy, China finds itself with too many elders to care for and fewer caregivers to provide it. Now Beijing, the capital city of China, is leading in creative efforts to solve this growing demographic dilemma by implementing "time banking" aimed at encouraging volunteers to take care of the elderly in exchange for credits for their old age.

Chinese netizens across the country on Thursday were helping a migrant worker in Beijng, also a COVID-19 asymptomatic carrier who has been called "the man living the most arduous life in China," find his missing son. His tough daily working schedule of bouncing around some 30 places in the Chinese capital to carry construction materials till midnight, which was revealed by an epidemiological investigation, deeply touched many people's hearts.

China is still within “the opportunity window” of the demographic dividends, which will end soon given the declining number of new born babies and the rapidly growing elderly population rate, said a Chinese demographic expert on Thursday.

A video showing “a tiger was walking around”, while separated by anti-explosion glass in a hotel room, went viral on Chinese social media on Thursday, triggering heated discussion about animal protection, safety of tourists and other issues.

The first batch of 1,200 torches of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, with their shell made of carbon fiber, will soon be delivered from Shanghai to Beijing, according to media reports on Wednesday.

Indian media and analysts are trying to boost confidence on India's ambitious plans for a space station amid suspicion and doubts, a mysterious logic that put a target on themselves to be mocked by some Chinese netizens. But, at the same time, other netizens and analysts said that space is free for any country or anyone to explore and they expect to see neighbor India realizing its dreams.

The story of an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19 reported in Beijing on Wednesday deeply touched Chinese netizens for his arduous life transporting decoration and construction materials, to as many as 31 sites across the capital since January 1, to make a living.

After a worker in a pet shop in HK caught COVID-19 from a hamster, the local govt ordered a mass cull of the animals. How big is the risk of animals passing the virus to human beings, and is killing the animal the only option we have in a situation like this?

Chinese public security authorities solved 54,000 drug crime cases, arrested 77,000 suspects and seized 27 tons of drugs in 2021 as the country stepped up efforts in its national anti-drug campaign and strengthened international cooperation to crack down on drug crime.

A Tuesday press conference held in Beijing, where participating central bank officials had made an earnest pledge to ensure favorable financing, has turned out to be a much-talked-about morale booster for the Chinese economy amid multiple downward pressures.

Four districts of Beijing have reported new domestically transmitted COVID-19 cases, underscoring the complexity and importance of the epidemic control work, local officials said. Among five new COVID-19 cases reported on Wednesday, four were related to cold-chain work, prompting Cai Qi, Party chief of Beijing, to call for a high alert in anti-epidemic work with cold chain scenarios and to immediately launch a full-scale inspection across the city.

At a time of a national brought about by the COVID-19 crisis, a number of US officials have been revealed to have cashed in on the epidemic by insider trading while concealing vital epidemic information from the public.

Five days after the volcanic eruption, Tonga remains largely beyond contact with the outside world except for satellite phone services. Falling volcanic ash has contaminated local fresh water, which relies on rainwater collection tanks and the tsunami triggered by the eruption also damaged residents' houses, the Global Times learned from embassy and local sources on Wednesday.

A district in Anyang, Central China's Henan Province, announced on early Wednesday that it will impose a “curfew” in some areas amid the COVID-19 outbreak in the city. The announcement sparked controversy online where some people questioned if the word “curfew” was properly used.

The Chinese Embassy in Canada on Wednesday reminded travelers going to China to strictly follow epidemic prevention regulations. This came after cases of people returning to China who were exposed to the virus through social activities after the "double test," warned the embassy.

Political advisors from the Committee of China Democratic League in East China's Zhejiang Province, also called Zhejiang Minmeng, proposed to establish colleges for live hosts in local counties to help promote local agricultural products amid the battle against COVID-19.

The volcanic eruption in Tonga could weaken the intensity of the summer monsoon in East Asia in the following year and thus cause the southward shift of China's summer rain belts, according to the China Meteorological Administration.

At least four rounds of disinfection will be carried out for international mail upon their arrival in China to prevent COVID-19 transmission from overseas, an official from the State Post Bureau of China said on Tuesday. Several cases found in Beijing, Zhuhai and Shenzhen in South China's Guangdong Province were suspected of being infected by contaminated goods from overseas.

Police have detained a doctor who was suspected of livestreaming a gynecological surgery of a female patient, the police in East China's Rizhao announced Tuesday evening. The account of the male doctor that was used for the livestream was also permanently banned on China's video-sharing platform Bilibili.

Northwest Chinas Shaanxi Province reported zero daily COVID19 cases on Tuesday for the first time in 40 days since the epidemic resurgence on December 9, 2021.

Water supply of the entire country of Tonga has been contaminated and people are struggling to access clean water. The country's crops have also been devastated, Cao Xiaolin, China's ambassador to Tonga, said in an interview with media on Tuesday.

A China-developed highly efficient bioaerosol nucleic acid detection system is expected to be used at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic venues. The system will contribute to smooth and safe Games amid the risks of the Omicron variant spread.

Latest in battle against coronavirus

Authorities in East China's Jiangsu Province have given huge rewards to 11 fishermen who captured suspicious foreign spying devices in Chinese territorial waters, winning applause from Chinese netizens on Tuesday for their vigilance of possible threats to maritime security.

The Beijing Winter Olympic Athletes' Village on Tuesday officially launched its closed-loop management and entered into pre-Games operations, as the globally anticipated event officially enters its final stage of preparation.

Beijing tightened anti-epidemic measures and urged all departments to fend off COVID-19 flare-ups in the city with all-round measures ahead of the Winter Olympics, after four COVID-19 infections, with both the Delta and Omicron variants, were detected in three days.

Foreign companies based in north China's Tianjin Municipality are hoping for a smooth resumption of production following the recent local outbreak of COVID-19.

The State Council has approved a 20:1 pooled sampling approach for mass nucleic acid testing, as the country is facing a head-on challenge from the highly contagious Omicron variant.

She did not even expect to stay over when she embarked on the journey to her blind date's home some 140 kilometers away. Yet, a snap COVID-19 lockdown trapped them together for a month and now, they decided to get engaged.

Mail from Canada is suspected of spreading COVID-19 in Beijing, as two more Omicron cases have been detected as of Tuesday. The local health authorities confirmed one infection of Omicron variant on Monday and another on Tuesday, both in the city's Haidian district.

GalaxySpace, a commercial micro-satellites developer headquartered in Beijing, said that it has completed manufacturing and examination of six low-orbit broadband communication satellites and is ready to launch them in the first season of 2022 via the Long March-2C carrier rocket.

The 6th plenary session of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC opened in Beijing on Tuesday.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan conducted an inspection tour from Wednesday to Monday in Omicron-hit Tianjin in North China, and urged local officials to adopt effective measures and quick response to the epidemic.

Tongji University has released the first autonomous robot for needle-free vaccinations in China, which is at the forefront of the global trend of needle-free injection technology, developers said.

A spokesperson of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games refuted recent reports by foreign media warning athletes over eating meat products in China that may contain banned substances and advising them not to take their phones to China citing alleged security issues. The committee ensured the absolute safety of athletes.

The Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games clarified the spectator policy on Monday as it decided to suspend open ticket sales. Instead, a designated audience will be selected for the competitions to ensure that they fully meet the anti-epidemic policy in the country.

The State Post Bureau of China has issued a notice to tighten regulations for overseas post and mail in order to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 from overseas.

China's postal administration on Monday vowed to "build a barrier" against COVID-19 cases imported through international express mail, after at least two Omicron cases, one in Beijing and another one in Shenzhen, were suspected of tracking back to packages from North America.

The domestic section of the China-Laos railway, a signature project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, is to increase capacity amid the Spring festival travel rush that begins on Monday.

China's 40-day Chunyun or Spring Festival travel rush, the world's largest human migration, kicked off on Monday with cautious measures amid domestic COVID-19 flare-ups in at least 10 provinces and regions.

In response to remarks made by some NBA players on China-related matters, former NBA star player Yao Ming said the sport serves as a bridge of communication, and as long as the bridge exists, time will fix many issues and he is happy to welcome those players who have a negative impression on China to visit the country and see a full picture.

China will present streamlined, safe and splendid Winter Games: Xi

About two weeks ahead of the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, former NBA star Yao Ming, also one of the leading Chinese sports figures to back Beijing's bid for the Beijing 2022, told the Global Times on Monday that he is confident that the Games will be a great success despite COVID-19 risks.

China's population has entered a zero-growth period, Chinese demographers said, as the number of newborns in the Chinese mainland dropped to 10.62 million in 2021, close to the number of deaths, but they noted China is developing from quantitative growth in the workforce to quality growth as record-high new graduates every year will improve the country's population quality as well as benefit the high-tech development.

North China's Tianjin Municipality is striving to quickly block local community transmission of COVID-19 amid the spread of Omicron, a top Chinese expert said in an interview with media.

China has provided about 372 billion facial masks to the international community as of the end of 2021: NBS

The single Omicron case detected in Beijing was traced back to an international document from Canada, and it was found to have similar strains from those in North America and Singapore. The Omicron variant was detected on the outer package, internal surface and papers of the mail, Beijing health authorities revealed on Monday.

Beijing, China's capital city, has beefed up COVID-19 prevention measures after the more contagious variant of the virus, Omicron, has appeared in the city, which is preparing to host the Winter Olympics in just three weeks.

Shenzhen, in South China's Guangdong Province, reported two new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, including one infection with the Omicron variant which is not linked to previous transmission chains in the city.

Some Asian residents in the US contacted by the Global Times expressed concerns over their safety after an Asian woman was killed by a homeless man after he pushed her in front of an oncoming subway train on Saturday morning at Times Square station in New York.

The tsunami triggered by a massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga rarely seen in 30 years has neither caused deaths or injuries of Chinese nationals nor brought disastrous effects to China's coast so far, but its impacts on the whole Pacific region are being closely watched by China as people worry whether the natural disaster would catastrophically inundate the low-lying Tongan islands and affect the global climate.

The Chinese Embassy in the US urged travelers flying to China to strictly follow anti-epidemic rules such as a mandatory self-health monitoring for seven days ahead of a flight and strict self-quarantine for 48 hours before the flight to prevent them from getting infected.

China is sharing its Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) - Eye of Heaven - with the world by allocating10 percent of its observation hours for projects run by foreign astronomers, and the percentage will definitely increase in the coming years, said FAST chief scientist.

The tsunami triggered by a massive underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga on Saturday has not brought disastrous effect on China's coast so far, the Tsunami Advisory Center of China's Ministry of National Resources said on Sunday.

Beijing will require nucleic acid tests within 72 hours of entry into the city, in a move to step up COVID-19 prevention after the city reported its first local Omicron case on Saturday.

Beijing has ruled out the risk of COVID-19 hot spots in connection with the patient infected with the Omicron variant as test results on all related risky places came back negative, health authorities in the city's Haidian district said Sunday.

The Omicron variant brings fewer serious illnesses but its virulence should not be overlooked, warned Zhang Wenhong, a renowned Chinese infectious disease expert in Shanghai as China registered Omicron infections in at least six cities, including Beijing and Shanghai.

Beijing vows to make sure the upcoming 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games a successful sports event as scheduled. This comes as the city is scrambling to prevent the first local Omicron case from spreading, three weeks before the Games' opening.

Beijing authorities confirmed that a new local COVID-19 case reported on Saturday belongs to the Omicron strain. The patient has had no contact with any confirmed cases and hasn't left the city over the last 14 days.

One new COVID-19 case detected in Beijing on Saturday.

More than 200 personnel related to the 2022 Winter Olympic Games are expected to arrive in Beijing this weekend, an official from the organizing committee said the city is well prepared for the arrival and departure service of those people, including routine COVID-19 prevention and control procedures and adjustment of inbound flights to Beijing if necessary.

Nine people involved in riots at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in 2019 received legal punishment on Saturday, with seven sentenced to between 38 and 40 months in prison. Two were sent to a correctional institution.

A total of 14 provincial-level places in China have reported imported Omicron cases, and of them, cases in three provinces and one municipality are locally transmitted cases with the Omicron variant. An official from China's top public health body said that China faces dual challenges of imported Delta, Omicron variants, and its epidemic prevention and control work confronts a severe situation as the Spring Festival travel rush is approaching.

An old lady in Southwest China's Sichuan Province probably never thought she would become a hot topic of discussion on the internet, just as most people would not expect to find a check for 150 million yuan ($23.6 million) lying in the street.

South China's Zhuhai in Guangdong Province,which borders Macao, reported seven locally-transmitted Omicron cases on Friday, making it the second city in the Chinese mainland to be hit by the Omicron variant after Tianjin. Zhuhai has canceled all flights to Beijing, and several nearby cities suspended expressway or waterway routes to Zhuhai.

Fabricating reports with numerous loopholes, hiring 'actresses' to play as 'victims,' covering malicious purposes of disturbing China's Xinjiang region with excuses on human rights… Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin on Friday used more than 20 slides to refute disinformation and rumors made by anti-China 'scholars,' the US and Western media, and the terrorist organization "World Uyghur Congress."

Chinese President Xi Jinping will attend the 2022 Davos World Economic Forum Virtual Session and deliver remarks from Beijing via video link on Monday. Observers said that as the world is once again at the crossroads in the post-COVID-19 era, China, with its contributions to global prevention of the COVID-19 and stable economic development, could offer Chinese approaches and wisdom in not only recovery but also resisting erosion of protectionism and unilateralism.

A 20-square-meter milk tea shop in downtown Shanghai was upgraded to a medium-risk area on Thursday, which once again won Chinese netizens' applauds over China's precise and targeted containment measures against COVID-19, and also a refute toward Western media's blaming of China's "lockdown" policies.

With three weeks to go before the opening of the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the hosting Beijing Municipality government released details on traffic management measures during the Winter Games, advocating for green and low-carbon travel, and calling for precedence to be given to Olympic traffic.

Two people in Beijing were detained by the police for spreading rumors that claimed residents were required to alter their commute times due to the US Olympic delegation's arrival at the city's airport, the Beijing police announced on Friday.

Chinese netizens gave a thumbs up to the country's "precise anti-virus measure" as a 20-square meter milk tea store in downtown Shanghai was upgraded to the latest medium-risk area in China on Thursday night, which netizens joked was the smallest COVID-19 risk area in the world.

North China's Tianjin Municipality has been making efforts to ensure residents' daily necessities and provide an optimized mechanism to ensure they have a smooth access to medical treatment amid the latest wave of COVID-19, the authorities announced on Thursday.

Beijing vowed to beef up measures to prevent a COVID-19 flare-up in China's capital and ensure people's safety as the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games approach. Besides the concerns raised by the latest domestic wave of COVID-19 in neighboring city Tianjin, the arrival of tens of thousands of overseas participants must alert the Chinese capital to the risk of imported infections.

A BBC headline twisting and partially telling the story of a Chinese doctor who allegedly violated the law has inspired Chinese netizens to mock the British broadcaster and denounce the Western media outlet's common practice of covering Chinese stories in a biased way.

Shanghai has strengthened control measures on community health monitoring of inbound travelers after five cases that tested positive for COVID-19 were all related to an imported asymptomatic case, the authorities said on Thursday.

China has become the world leader in applying high-tech means into its eco development, with smarter 5G technology playing a significant role in the further reduction of energy consumption, which has been showed in the preparation period of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, and will further serve Chinas carbon reduction goals.

Global car producers Volkswagen and Toyota's factories in Tianjin have been shut down since Monday as the city battles a new epidemic outbreak.

As the Omicron variant makes its way in Hong Kong, local public venues are ramping up preventive measures. An interdisciplinary research team from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) successfully developed the world's first anti-virus 3D printed material that can kill the virus that causes COVID-19 on surfaces as well as other common viruses and bacteria regardless of the variant.

The topic that over 5 million primary and high school students in China currently suffer from spinal deformities, with the number increasing by about 300,000 every year, trended on China's social media on Thursday, with many netizens attributing the situation to Chinese students' heavy schoolbags.

The latest COVID-19 outbreak in the northern Chinese city Tianjin has spread to at least two other cities - Anyang in Central China's Henan Province and Dalian, a port city in Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and local authorities in Dalian on Wednesday said the epidemic situation was basically under control.

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) on Thursday upgraded its COVID-19 prevention measures, requiring all personnel entering the city from the mainland via land border ports to present a negative nucleic acid test certificate taken within 48 hours starting Friday, after Zhongshan, which is about 70 kilometers from Macao, reported one positive case on Thursday and two of the close contacts of the case were found in Macao.

​Tianjin, a gateway to Beijing, has cut off public transportation to other cities including trains, buses and taxis, and car-hailing service as the city registered more residents with the Omicron variant.

Two hospitals in Xi'an which delayed the rescue and treatment of a pregnant woman and a critical ill patient were ordered to suspend their operations for rectification for three months, the local health commission announced on Thursday.

The Omicron variant, which spreads faster than Delta, could cause a surge in hospitalizations and stretch the health care system. The battle against Omicron is still at “the toughest moment,” said Zhang Wenhong, a well-respected infectious disease expert in Shanghai, noting that a best strategy for China is to be patient and maintain composure.

Beijing has beefed up health monitoring of everyone entering to the capital to ensure that no one is missed as the capital tries to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak. This comes as Beijing is preparing for the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo banned on Wednesday economist Ren Zeping, who has become an online celebrity, from posting on the platform for violating "relevant laws and regulations."

Local governments of China are starting to include the metaverse in their government work reports for 2022, indicating potential government support for the nascent yet extremely popular concept in the coming months.