Anti-desertification volunteers strengthen a straw checkerboard sand barrier in Linze County of Zhangye, northwest China's Gansu Province, March 27, 2018. More than 100 million Chinese have registered as volunteers by the end of 2018, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. There have been about 12,000 organizations of volunteer services registered by the end of 2018, which provided more than 1.2 billion hours of service in total, according to a ministry statement published earlier. Chinese have taken an increasingly active part in volunteering in recent years, particularly at major international events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, the G20 Hangzhou summit in 2016 and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Qingdao summit in 2018. The country's first regulation on volunteer services took effect in December 2017, clarifying the principles and establishing administrative institutions in this regard. With the number of volunteers growing fast, more efforts will be made to encourage their participation in public service and social governance, and improve the quality of their service, said a statement from the China Volunteer Service Federation. (Xinhua/Wang Jiang)