On September 28, the live-streaming event of the 2026 Global Online Memorial Ceremony for Confucius was successfully held to commemorate the 2,577th anniversary of the birth of Confucius. The event was sponsored by Nishan World Center for Confucian Studies and China Confucius Foundation, co-hosted by China Confucius Net (https://www.chinakongzi.org) and the Cultural Inheritance and Development Center of Jining City, and co-organized by the Confucius Temple Protection Association of China.

As China's longest-running and most widely covered Confucius commemoration-themed online IP, this year's event took "Benevolence and Rites for All, Harmony and Great Unity" as its theme. Adopting a model of "main studio + branch venues + live streaming sites across the globe," it mobilized more than 70 Confucian temples, academies, Confucian research institutions and Chinese communities at home and abroad to take part simultaneously. It created a panoramic picture of the Confucius Commemoration Ceremony featuring "full coverage in China and extensive overseas engagement," fully demonstrating the profound vitality of Confucian culture rooted in China and nourishing the world.

The event consisted of four themed chapters: "This Culture Dwells Here," "Joint Commemoration Across the Nation," "Confucianism Converges Across the Four Seas,"and "Eternal Strings and Songs."Confucian scholars were invited to the main studio for dialogues covering topics including the core connotations of Confucianism, approaches to inheriting Confucianism in contemporary times, and the modern transformation of ritual and music civilization. The event, for the first time, integrated large AI models and featured an AI digital anchor in short videos, topic discussions and other sessions, bringing the millennia-old Confucianism closer to the public through youthful and digital forms of expression.

Domestic live broadcasts focused on the Qufu Confucian Temple and the Quzhou Confucian Temple, offering in-depth interpretations of the differences between, and historical origins of, the northern and southern rites and music of the Confucius Commemoration Ceremony. Meanwhile, the live streaming connected renowned Confucian temples, academies and cultural institutions including the Changchun Confucian Templein Jilin, the Nanjing Confucius Temple in Jiangsu and the Zhengding Confucian Templein Hebei, presenting the distinctive local Shidian (Confucius commemoration) ritualswith live on-site footage. Overseas live broadcasts featured Confucius memorial ceremonies held at Sungkyunkwan in the Republic of Korea, the Confucius Temple of Ashikaga School in Japan, the Temple of Literature in Hanoi, Vietnam, the Supreme Council for the Confucian Religion in Indonesia (MATAKIN), and the Confucius School at the China International School in Thailand. The broadcasts introduced the evolutionary process of the localization of Confucianism overseas, and simultaneously presented cultural activities commemorating Confucius hosted by Confucius Classrooms and overseas Chinese cultural communities worldwide.

In the segments "Confucius in the Eyes of Overseas Gen Z"and "Global Collective Recitation of The Analects of Confucius,"young people from diverse countries and regions were invited to share their real-life experiences of studying The Analects of Confucius and engaging with Confucian culture, striking a strong cultural chord with young audiences worldwide.

Partnering with over 70 mainstream domestic media for concurrent live broadcasts, the event drew a total of 37 million online views. Distributed globally through multilingual overseas communication channels, related topics recorded more than 30 million views across online platforms.