The 2026 Beijing Book Fair opened on Thursday amid China's endeavor to promote public reading.

The book fair is set at the China International Exhibition Center in Chaoyang District, covering an area of 50,000 square meters and presenting more than 400,000 titles with over 2,700 booths.

A new regulation the country just rolled out, which will take effect on Feb. 1, aims to raise the intellectual, moral, scientific, and cultural standards of the Chinese people and enhance overall social civility, contributing to China's efforts to build itself into a country with a strong socialist culture.

Major publishing groups and institutions are also seizing this opportunity to align with the implementation of national policies and regulations to gain a competitive edge in the industry.

"In planning our publishing strategy for 2026, the regulation to promote public reading is a great boon to our book industry. We will deepen our presence in the market of Chinese language and writing reference books, and further our efforts to integrate digital and intelligent technologies to empower the publishing industry following the concept of building an independent Chinese knowledge system," said Gu Qing, Party secretary of the Commercial Press.

Publishers pledge that they will leverage their strengths in serving economic growth hotspots and turn out more high-quality books in alignment with national strategies.

"We should leverage the current booming industries in the economic development, and the rich audio-video and film resources, to create and public good books in formats to the liking of the people," said Zhu Yanbo, head of marketing department of China Radio and Television Publishing House.

"Like the trilogy of Conscience Challenge (an anti-corruption novel) we published, the sales volume of its first print was over a million copies, and the reprint has now sold over 200,000 copies. How to make books closer to life and people is something our publishing industry should focus on," said Liu Haitao, Party secretary of China Democracy Legal System Publishing House.