China legislates to protect culture

"We must develop a socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, inspire the cultural creativity of our whole nation and develop a great socialist culture in China," said President Xi Jinping in his report to the Communist Party of China’s 19th National Congress.

China has always been aware developing a great socialist culture should be safeguarded by rule of law. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, adhering to the concept of law-based governance of the country, China has made great headway in cultural legislation and cultural law enforcement so as to keep up with cultural reform in the new era.

On May 19 and 20 of 2015, the Ministry of Culture held a national conference on the rule of law in the cultural field in Beijing and since then cultural legislation has progressed by leaps and bounds.

Statistics show by the end of 2016, there were 154 local laws, 138 local government statutes, and more than 13,000 local regulatory documents, all closely related to cultural work across the country. It’s worth noting 14 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities each have more than 10 pieces of local cultural legislation.

Recent years have also witnessed great reforms of law enforcement in the cultural field. All 403 prefecture-level cities and 2,594 counties and districts have set up their own comprehensive law enforcement agencies, with the number of law enforcement officials exceeding 30,000.

In terms of protection of intangible cultural heritage, the Ministry of Culture found in a 2016 survey that apart from abiding by the State-level Intangible Cultural Heritage Law, 24 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities had their own local statutes to better safeguard intangible cultural heritage.

By the end of 2016, a total of 1,986 national intangible cultural heritage inheritors in four batches were recognized by the Ministry of Culture. In addition, 14,928 provincial intangible cultural heritage inheritors were recognized by local governments.

The Chinese government has been strict in enforcing the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics. In 2017, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage investigated 314 cases relating to cultural relic mismanagement and 178 officials were held accountable and punished. Meanwhile, China has shown zero tolerance to theft and trade in cultural relics. Last year, more than 100 gangs have been exposed and nearly 1,000 arrests were made.

Furthermore, the Public Cultural Service Guarantee Law and the Public Library Law were respectively introduced in 2016 and 2017 to better promote public cultural programs and deliver more quality cultural services to the public.