The 140th Canton Fair opened in Guangzhou on October 14 and will run until November 4, 2026, marking 70 years since its first session in 1957. The exhibition area totals about 1.55 million square meters, with 32,000 exhibitors.
As of October 9, more than 210,000 buyers from 196 countries and regions had pre-registered, nearly 80 percent of them professional buyers. A total of 170 leading buyer companies and 48 global partners have confirmed group participation.
Over the past 70 years, the Canton Fair has grown from its first session, which spanned 9,600 square meters and attracted 1,200 buyers, to 140 uninterrupted sessions, becoming one of China's international trade events with the best transaction results.
What if an 18th-century American trader walked into the 140th Canton Fair? The AIGC short-video series Canton Fair: A Time-Traveling Encounter features Edward Norton, an American trader in Qing-era Guangzhou during the Thirteen Hongs period, who receives a sourcing list from 242 years ahead and steps into the 140th Canton Fair.
Accompanied by Yuemian, a modern college student who has traveled back to ancient times, he discovers how contemporary China does business with the world through the Canton Fair and how advanced Chinese manufacturing empowers global life.
In Episode 1, Edward arrives in Guangzhou in 1784 aboard the Empress of China and meets Yuemian. Together, they accidentally receive a sourcing invitation to the 140th Canton Fair: to find a new way to bake for an American family 242 years ahead.
With Yuemian, Edward crosses into modern Guangzhou, where the old handoff rules still apply but the scale has changed. At the fair, he sees a humanoid robot that can carry 20 kg, a robot coffee machine, modern payment methods and AI translation glasses. In the end, he finds a Guangdong-made oven—eco-friendly, fast and easy to use. All of this shocks him: the goods China trades with the world today are incredibly advanced, and trading with China has never been this convenient.
His Canton Fair journey is not over. Next, he and Yuemian will visit factories in Guangdong, where they will learn about production lines and the details of international business negotiations. They will then go to airports and ports to see how Guangdong's extensive, globally connected transportation network delivers advanced, high-tech products into the hands of international consumers as quickly as possible.
Reporter | Chen Jinxia
