The 1996 Asian Winter Games were held in Harbin. While ice games were mainly held in Harbin city, the skiing events were held in Yabuli ski resort, Shangzhi City. In the frame of this campaign to assert its role on the world scene, Harbin hosted the 2009 Winter Universiade. Local Government spent 3.6 billion yuan for this event, with 2.63 billion used in construction and renovation of its sport infrastructure for this Universiade.[152]

Harbin hosted the Asian Basketball Confederation Championship in 2003, in which China won the championship on their home court for the thirteenth time.[153]

Harbin bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, which was ultimately awarded to Vancouver, Canada.[154]

The second China-Russia University Winter Sports Carnival was inaugurated 12 December 2017.[155] This marked the first international bandy in Harbin.[156] The Russian participation came from DVGAFK in Khabarovsk among men and IrGTU in Irkutsk among women.[157]

Being the national centre of bandy, Harbin organised Division B of the 2018 Bandy World Championship and China improved its placing to 12th from a total field of 16 teams.