With a record-high number of trips made during the past eight days, the National Day holiday, one of the most important times of a year in China, has inspired big changes in the way people travel.

Usually, the National Day holiday runs from Oct 1 to 7 and is dubbed “Golden Week”.

This year, the holiday was prolonged to eight days, as it coincided with Mid-Autumn Festival. The longer duration of the holiday enabled more people to take trips.

Statistics from the China National Tourism Administration showed that 705 million trips were made during the eight-day National Day holiday this year, 663 million of them in the first seven days, up 12 percent from the seven-day holiday last year. Five years ago, 428 million trips were taken during the seven-day holiday.

But the increasing number of trips is not the only change in the past several years.

Rail travel, particularly on high-speed trains, has enabled more people to travel during the holiday. Estimates from China Railway Corp, the national rail operator, showed that about 40 percent of trips during the holiday were made by train, including on the Fuxing, the high-speed train developed by China that was put into operation in June and travels at speeds up to 350 km/h.

At the same time, the free-of-charge policy on expressways during public holidays, which first went into effect during the 2012 National Day holiday, made it cheaper and more convenient for people taking road trips. This encouraged more people to travel by car.

Yang Pei, 46, a resident of Dezhou, Shandong province, took his wife and daughter on a road trip to Tianjin during the holiday. On other days, a road trip between his hometown and the North China municipality would cost travelers 210 yuan ($32) to pass the toll stations on the expressways.

“With the ‘free pass’ policy on holidays, our only cost during this trip is gasoline, which is about 300 yuan,” he said. “It’s very economical because traveling by high-speed train would cost a family of three twice as much.”

In addition, tourists in China also used shared bikes more frequently during the holiday, which added convenience in urban areas and helped the environment.

As of the end of July, more than 16 million bikes will have been put into operation nationwide. According to Ofo, one of the major bike-sharing companies, the usage frequency of its bikes increased by 15 percent during the National Day holiday. Carbon emissions were reduced by about 78,000 metric tons, it said.

Zhang Min, a Beijing resident who traveled to Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, said shared bikes helped her when she was sightseeing in the city.

“It’s really comfortable to ride a bike and appreciate the scenery in the mild autumn weather, not to mention that I don’t have to call an expensive taxi or wait for the always-crowded bus,” she said, adding that the occurrence of new things has given people more choices in their outing.

Seven people have been detained by police and are under investigation for chasing a herd of Tibetan antelopes, using off-road vehicles, reports thepaper.cn.

The drivers of two off-road vehicles are now under investigation for chasing Tibetan antelopes on October 4, 2017. [Photo: Weibo/Safe Lhasa]

It followed the posting of a short video online showing two vehicles driving close to a herd of Tibetan antelopes, which officials identified as being near Co Ngoin Lake in Tibet Autonomous Region.

An official investigation was immediately launched by local police.

Photos of two white off-road vehicles chasing Tibetan antelopes on October 4, 2017 were posted online two days later. [Photo: Weibo]

Police said the suspects had approached the Tibetan antelopes in the off-road vehicles in order to take photos of them at close range, and did not intend to hit them. No Tibetan antelope was killed or injured as a result of the incident.

The investigation is still underway.

Tibet is home to around 125 species of wild animals of national priority protection, including Tibetan antelope, wild yak and kiang, a type of wild donkey.

The Tibetan antelope is native to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. More than 200,000 individuals remain in the wild, most of which dwell in the Qiangtang National Nature Reserve. They have become endangered due to poaching in recent years.

The Tibetan antelope is listed among the protected species under China’s national legislation.

According to its National Wildlife Protection Law, if anyone, in violation of the provisions of this Law, hunts or catches wildlife without a hunting license or in violation of the prescriptions of the hunting license, his catch and unlawful income shall be confiscated and he shall be fined by the department of wildlife administration and, in addition, his hunting gear may be confiscated and his hunting license revoked.

Passengers queue to take a subway after arriving at Beijing Railway Station in Beijing, capital of China, Oct. 7, 2017. As the National Day holiday draws to its end, Beijing greets a large number of passengers back to work and college. (Xinhua/Tao Ye)

Chinese railways have been busy during the National Day holiday, carrying people to tourist attractions or back home for family reunions before returning to work and school.

People in China have made about 105 million trips by railway since the holiday travel rush started on Sept. 28, the China Railway Corporation (CRC) said Saturday.

The National Day holiday has been extended to eight days this year to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Cake Festival, which fell on Oct. 4.

On Friday, about 12.4 million trips were made, up 8.6 percent year on year, making it the seventh day in a row with more than 10 million railway trips, said the company.

Expecting 13.6 million trips to be made on Saturday, the company said it had arranged 911 more trains to ensure smooth travel.

Chinese railways set a new record in daily passenger traffic as more than 15 million trips were made on Oct. 1, or the National Day, the first day of the eight-day holiday.

Railways nationwide will serve around 130 million passengers in the 11 days following Sept. 28, according to an early forecast by the CRC.

More than 70,000 officials at or above the county-head level have been investigated for suspected corruption since the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress in 2012, the top anti-graft body of the CPC said Saturday.

The anti-graft campaign continues to gain momentum and win applause from the public, according to a statement on the website of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI).

Five years ago, China’s new leadership launched a high-profile anti-corruption campaign, which has led to the downfall of a number of high-level officials, known as “tigers,” and lower-level “flies” who serve at the grassroots level.

Among the tigers felled in the campaign were Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee; Bo Xilai, former Party chief of Chongqing Municipality; Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both former generals and vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission; as well as Ling Jihua and Su Rong, former vice chairmen of China’s top political advisory body.

According to the CCDI, 1.34 million township-level and 648,000 Party members and officials in rural areas were also punished during that period.

The CPC, the world’s largest ruling Party, released an “eight-point” rule on austerity in late 2012 to reduce undesirable work practices. The CCDI now has a monthly reporting system on the implementation of the rules within provincial-level governments, central Party and governmental agencies, centrally administered state-owned enterprises and central financial institutions.

China also worked with the international community to hunt corruption suspects who had fled overseas via the “Sky Net” manhunt and other operations.

By the end of August, 3,339 fugitives were captured from more than 90 countries and regions, with 628 of them being former officials. About 9.36 billion yuan (around 1.41 billion U.S. dollars) was recovered, the CCDI said.

Among the top 100 fugitives listed on an Interpol red notices, 46 have been arrested, it said.

Amid high pressure, the number of corrupt officials who fled overseas saw a drastic decrease in 2016. A total of 19 fugitive suspects fled China in 2016, compared with 31 in 2015 and 101 in 2014.

In the past five years, the CPC Central Committee has tirelessly addressed “si feng,” or “the four forms of decadence” — formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism and extravagance.

By the end of 2016, 155,300 violations against the eight-point code on frugality and maintaining close links with the masses had been investigated. Among the violations, 78.2 percent took place in 2013 and 2014, 15.1 percent took place in 2015, and 6.7 percent in 2016, indicating marked decreases each year.

Moreover, the CCDI has shown that it is serious about tackling corruption within its own ranks, which it refers to as “darkness hiding beneath the light.”

By the end of 2016, 17 disciplinary officials were investigated and 7,900 others were punished, it said.

A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics showed 92.9 percent of people were satisfied with the anti-corruption campaigns in 2016, 17.9 percentage points higher than in 2012.

The police in China’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) will launch a road safety campaign on Saturday, targeting drivers of public service vehicles.

During the five-day campaign, the police will take stringent enforcement action against undesirable driving behavior including using mobile communication devices while driving, speeding and seatbelt-related offences, local radio RTHK quoted the police as saying.

The campaign will target drivers of taxis, public buses, private light buses, private school buses and other public service vehicles.

From January to August this year, there were 4,304 accidents involving public service vehicles, causing 5,915 casualties, including 23 deaths.

This accounted for more than 40 percent of all traffic accidents during the period.

The police urged drivers of public service vehicles to observe traffic regulations, pay attention to road conditions, wear seatbelts and remind passengers to do the same.