Overview of China's Early Warning Information Dissemination
1. Coverage and Comprehensiveness of Warning Dissemination and Communication
China possesses comprehensive capabilities for warning dissemination and communication, and the capability to reach all at-risk populations in any location. Warnings can be issued rapidly at large scale, conveyed to all at-risk populations through one or more credible, understandable, and actionable methods.
A multi-channel approach is adopted, from Location-Based Short Message Service (LB-SMS) to traditional media, broadcasting, public terminals, and internet services, ensuring that there is no single point of failure when issuing life-saving alerts.
A comprehensive space-air-ground integrated architecture has been established for warning information dissemination. The convergence of multiple technologies has become a prevailing trend,with cellular mobile networks serving as the backbone and supplemented by satellite communications. Up to now, all 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities nationwide have established location-based SMS warning dissemination capabilities. Furthermore, the National Early Warning Information Issuance System delivers alerts to television audiences via mandatory broadcast interruption and scrolling subtitles across radio and television networks. At the same time, it also provides warning services directly to end-users in rural and remote areas through the emergency broadcasting system. Early warning centers at the national, provincial, municipal, and county levels have established a coordinated social media presence across platforms including Weibo, WeChat, Douyin (TikTok), and Toutiao. A new media dissemination matrix comprising over 2,000 accounts have been formed. In 2024, a SMS-0 based mandatory alert service was introduced, capable of overriding mobile phone silent or vibrate modes to ensure critical warnings reach their intended recipients.
Sound policies and regulations enhance the capacity of media and telecommunications companies to fulfill their roles, demonstrating good risk governance. The meteorological department has established “green channels” to ensure operation continuity for widespread and equitable alert dissemination, facilitate public dialogue on risk governance and, in the long term, enhance engagement and trust.
At the level of national laws, Article 65 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Response to Emergencies (revised in 2024) stipulates that “The State shall establish and improve emergency event warning issuance platforms, and issue emergency event warning information to the public in a timely and accurate manner in accordance with relevant regulations. Radio, television, press, and internet service providers, as well as telecommunications operators, shall establish rapid dissemination channels for emergency event warning information in accordance with relevant State regulations, and broadcast or publish such information in a timely, accurate, and gratuitous manner.” This provides the sound legal basis for the dissemination of emergency event warning information through various channels, clarifying their statutory obligations.
At the level of departmental regulations, Article 10 of the Meteorological Disaster Warning Signal Issuance and Dissemination Measures (China Meteorological Administration Order No. 16, 2007) stipulates that “Radio, television, and other media, as well as fixed-line networks, mobile networks, and the Internet, shall cooperate with meteorological authorities to disseminate warning signals in a timely manner,” clarifying the responsibility of operators to cooperate with dissemination. Article 9 of the Opinions on Strengthening Meteorological Disaster Monitoring, Warning, and Information Issuance (General Office of the State Council [2011] No. 33) explicitly requires radio, television, press, and telecommunications authorities, as well as media and telecommunications enterprises, to fulfill their social responsibilities by disseminating meteorological disaster warning information in a timely, accurate, and gratuitous manner through radio, television, newspapers, the Internet, mobile SMS, and other channels. In emergency situations, normal broadcasting may be interrupted for rapid reporting; telecommunications enterprises must upgrade SMS platforms to ensure free, precise dissemination to users in disaster areas. Article 10 clarifies the need to improve warning information dissemination methods, build dissemination facilities in densely populated areas, strengthen terminal construction in rural and remote areas, employ various dissemination methods tailored to local conditions, promot the integration of emergency broadcasting systems with meteorological disaster warning information issuance systems, and enhance dissemination capabilities at the grassroots level and in remote areas. Article 11 calls for improved grassroots warning dissemination mechanisms. It mandates the establishment of unimpeded direct channels for meteorological disaster warnings from the county down to the township, village, and household levels.
Regarding the joint issuances across departments, in 2021, the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the Pilot Work Plan for Precise Targeted Dissemination of Meteorological Disaster Warning SMS. It announced pilot programsin Fujian and Guizhou provinces as well as Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, to promote the use of telecommunications big data platforms for precise targeted dissemination of warning SMS. This initiative addresses issues of timeliness and precision in SMS issuance, further enhancing the capability to disseminate meteorological disaster warning information through telecommunications networks, and effectively strengthening the first line of defense in meteorological disaster prevention and mitigation. The Opinions of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and Fourteen Other Departments on Strengthening Emergency Communication Capabilities in Extreme Scenarios (2024) explicitly calls for enhancing emergency communication command and warning capabilities, building robust warning information dissemination capabilities for communication networks based on cell broadcast technology, and interfacing with the national emergency event warning information issuance system to achieve second-level, targeted, and secure warning information issuance.
2. Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
In China, all provinces/autonomous regions have applied the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and developed the national standard Emergency Information Exchange Protocol Part 1: Warning Information. Additionally, new standards have been established for various aspects including means of dissemination interfacing, application of dissemination channels, data feedback, and effectiveness evaluation within the warning information issuance system.
3. Multi-hazard Early Warning System for Mobile Terminals
The National Early Warning Release Network has been put into operation since 2018, operated by the National Early Warning Center. It is the sole official national outlet for comprehensive early warning information issued by the State Council's emergency management department to government emergency managers and the general public. The 12379 National Early Warning APP is an official meteorological service software launched by the National Early Warning Information Issuance Center, primarily providing notification services for early warning information on natural disasters, public health incidents, social security incidents, and accident disasters.
As of December 2025, all provinces/autonomous region have implemented warning information targeted dissemination capabilities by overlaying Location-Based Services (LBS) on cellular mobile network foundations.
The early warning comprehensive population coverage rate (EWCPC) refers to the proportion of people in an affected area who possess warning-capable terminal devices, relative to the total population that can be reached through existing dissemination channels. In this connection, two conditions must be met simultaneously: first, at least one dissemination network can reach the affected population; second, the affected population possesses terminal devices capable of receiving information. In 2025, the coverage rate of early warning information for the public in China reached 99.68%.