Spring Festival Gala 2026: Tradition meets global stage

Editor's note: Wang Yan, a special commentator for CGTN, is an associate research fellow at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of CGTN.

Few shows in the world can compare to the Chinese Spring Festival Gala, where actors, singers, dancers, scientists, athletes, model workers, people from all walks of life, all ethnicities of a nation and even from various countries in the world, young and old, gather together to celebrate the Spring Festival with top-level performances – this is a grand cultural feast of China, broadcast live on television on Chinese New Year's Eve.

The Spring Festival Gala 2026 has gained a record-breaking popularity – audiences from around the world tuned in through China Media Group's multilingual platforms in 85 languages, and 3,500 media outlets worldwide over 200 countries and regions that broadcast and report it live.

As such, it has evolved from its traditional role as a familial gathering gala into something far more profound: a vibrant window through which global audiences come to understand contemporary China, and a stage where diverse cultures engage in meaningful dialogue.

This transformation reflects a broader narrative of openness. While the gala originated in 1983 as a modest single-venue broadcast, it has evolved into a complex, multi-platform spectacle connecting different Chinese communities across continents. When international performers take to the stage – whether European classical musicians, African dance troupes, or Latin American vocalists – the event transcends its origins to become a genuinely international celebration. These artistic collaborations signal more than entertainment; they represent a philosophy of cultural reciprocity that defines modern China's engagement with the world.

The internationalization of the gala manifests itself through deliberate programming choices. Multilingual translations – including Spanish, French, Arabic, and other major languages – demonstrated a conscious effort to reach beyond Mandarin-speaking audiences.

What distinguishes this global outreach is the artistic synthesis it achieves. The gala orchestrates encounters between distinct aesthetic systems – Peking Opera vocal techniques merge with Italian bel canto, Mongolian throat singing provides rhythmic foundation for Celtic folk melodies, ballet meets street dance combining classical elegance with urban rhythm, cross-cultural acrobatic performance blending Chinese traditional techniques with international staging and choreography. These are not mere juxtapositions but genuine fusions that create new artistic vocabularies.

What enabled these diverse elements to cohere was the gala's anchoring in a set of universal values and aspirations that resonate across civilizational boundaries. The gala's thematic emphasis on collective prosperity, social harmony, and familial bonds – while articulated through Chinese cultural symbols – addresses desires common to humanity everywhere. When audiences witness performances celebrating agricultural abundance, they recognize gratitude for nature's gifts; when narratives of journey and return unfold, they evoke familial bonds across distance; when communities gather to share festive meals, they affirm the social nature of human existence.

This artistic interpretation of shared values carries particular significance for China's vision of a global community. By presenting collective well-being as an ideal worthy of celebration, the gala articulates the philosophical underpinnings of a shared future for mankind. When performers and audiences join in shared celebration, the moment transcends specific content to affirm possibilities of human connection across their differences. In an era often characterized by fragmentation, the gala offers a counter-narrative: Diverse populations can find common cause in their appreciation of beauty, commitment to family, and hope for the future.

As everyone in the gala joined the midnight countdown "at the gate of spring" and "expressed their best wishes" to embrace the coming spring, millions around the world joined in a sentiment that transcends nationality and ethnicity: the wish for peace, prosperity, and happiness in the year ahead. In that shared moment, the gala fulfilled its highest purpose – not merely as a showcase for Chinese culture, but as a celebration of our common humanity.

The Spring Festival Gala ultimately illustrates that cultural confidence expresses itself not through exclusivity but through generosity – the willingness to share one's stage, to learn from others, to find common ground without erasing difference. As the program continues to expand its international footprint, it carries a vision of human community that transcends the specific circumstances of its creation. In this sense, the gala becomes not merely a Chinese celebration but a contribution to global culture – a demonstration that ancient civilizations can renew themselves through openness.

As the fireworks of the Year of the Horse fade out , the gala's broader significance will persist. The charm of culture lies in exchange, and the vitality of civilization depends on mutual learning. Chinese culture presents itself to the world with growing confidence because this confidence enables openness. In doing so, Chinese culture contributes to building a globally shared understanding – a resource for imagining how diverse peoples might live together with creativity, mutual respect, and hope for betterment that transcends any single tradition's boundaries.

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