To honor, protect national heritage
Landmark efforts and triumphs showcase China’s dedication to cultural development
Cultural heritage keeps people together and reminds them that, in spite of times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, traditions and values are passed from one generation to the next.
Chinese heritage conservators and researchers proved their steadfast commitment to safeguarding relics in 2020.
China Daily presents 10 major developments.
At the 23rd group study session of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on Sept 28, President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the CPC, emphasized the significance of archaeological studies to better understand Chinese civilization and enhance cultural self-confidence.
It was the first time for the CPC Central Committee to organize a group study session on archaeology.
Following Xi’s call to highlight the status of archaeology in the country’s overall development, a new nationallevel archaeological institution — the National Center for Archaeology — was established on Nov 30. It is directly affiliated with the National Cultural Heritage Administration.
The new center will focus on underwater archaeology, studies in frontier regions and Sino-foreign research, as well as act as a think tank for the country’s policymaking on archaeology.
On May 11, Xi visited the 1,500-yearold Yungang Grottoes, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Datong, Shanxi province. There, he urged better displays of the cultural significance of the country’s grotto temples to foster a stronger sense of cultural identity and enable further exchanges among civilizations.
The State Council, China’s Cabinet, issued a set of guidelines in October to enhance protection and studies of such sites carved into mountains or rocks and visited by religious pilgrims throughout history.
The guidance also included a longterm plan to nurture expertise and technological breakthroughs in atrisk sites’ restoration.
All administrations of the country’s grotto temples were required to map their own plans for capping tourist numbers by the end of 2020.
Fruitful discoveries were made throughout the year under a nationwide archaeological project called Archaeology China, which aimed to explore the origins of Chinese civilization.
For example, China’s earliest multigrid city layout was found in the 3,700-year-old Erlitou site in Luoyang, Henan province, which is widely believed to be the capital of the Xia Dynasty (c. 21st century-16th century BC) — the first dynasty recorded in Chinese history.
In Shuanghuaishu, a site in Henan’s provincial capital, Zhengzhou, that dates back 5,300 years, archaeologists unearthed the highest-level residential
complex of its time along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, which is generally considered to be the cradle of Chinese civilization.
In Yuyao, Zhejiang province, the largest and oldest prehistoric shell mound in China was excavated at the Jingtoushan site, which dates back to 8,000 years ago.
The Forbidden City, China’s imperial palace from 1420 to 1911, where 24 emperors from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties once lived, celebrated the 600th anniversary of its completion.
Officially known as the Palace Museum today, the compound was closed for 98 days — the longest period in decades — to contain the novel coronavirus. But its reopening has been welcomed by enthusiastic visitors.
From September to November, crowds of people poured into the Meridian Gate Galleries for the exhibition, Everlasting Splendor: Six Centuries at the Forbidden City, which celebrated the vicissitudes of the former royal palace.
Other key exhibitions and symposiums were held and books were published, showing the significance the Forbidden City plays in Chinese culture.
Despite experiencing continuous wars and social upheavals, thanks to good fortune and recent years’ devoted restoration, the world’s largest palace complex — covering 720,000 square meters — remains almost as glorious as in bygone days.
A famous bronze sculpture of a horse’s head, which was looted by the invading Anglo-French alliance from the Qing royal resort, Yuanmingyuan, or the Old Summer Palace, in Beijing in 1860 was returned to its home site on Dec 1, after a long stay overseas.
The bust was bought by late Hong Kong-Macao business magnate Stanley Ho Hung-sun in 2007 and was donated to the National Cultural Heritage Administration in 2019.
Likewise, 68 long-lost Chinese cultural relics arrived in Beijing from the United Kingdom on Oct 20 after continuous repatriation efforts.
These pieces were seized by British police in 1995 but had remained in police custody in London because their local buyer refused to participate in negotiations. The stalemate was broken recently due to the close cooperation of diplomatic, judicial, law-enforcement and cultural authorities in China and the UK.
The COVID-19 outbreak compelled Chinese museums to close their doors almost overnight before Spring Festival in January 2020. But it also triggered a trend in which venues have adopted new forms of digital exhibition and publicity amid the closures of their physical locations.
According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, museums nationwide organized more than 2,000 online exhibitions attracting over 5 billion views during Spring Festival alone.
Since late February last year, numerous museums ignited enthusiasm when they launched their first livestream tours. Many venues cooperated with online-shopping websites to promote their souvenirs during virtual tours.
For example, the first day-and-ahalf livestream at the Palace Museum in April got over 100 million “clicks”. In March, a one-hour live tour of the Hubei Provincial Museum in Wuhan, the city hit hardest by COVID-19 in China, had 8 million views.
Chinese museums have gradually reopened since April. On May 18, the country’s main annual celebration for International Museum Day was
held in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, as was originally scheduled, but many online activities were also introduced.
On July 1, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the National Cultural Heritage Administration jointly released a national guidance for the protection of cultural heritage sites related to the Grand Canal, the 3,200-kilometerlong, 2,500-year-old waterway connecting Beijing and Zhejiang province.
A comprehensive investigation of these sites will be launched to set up a national database on the canal.
More archaeological research along the canal will follow, and historical parks and museums will better display the waterway’s significance.
Urban construction projects by the canal will also be strictly supervised to ensure relics’ safety and to keep the landscape intact.
Separately, the Ministry of Water Resources announced a plan to reintroduce water in some dry sections of the canal through ecological restoration.
China’s second national-level county-specific list of conservation areas related to the revolutionary years was released on July 1. The publicity department of the CPC Central Committee, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism also drafted the list of revolutionary relics of memorial significance.
It involves 988 counties across 31 provincial-level administrative regions, grouped into 22 conservation areas, related to locations where the CPC fought against Japanese invaders, undertook the Long March and led other revolutionary activities.
And 13 provincial-level administrative regions have also set up specific departments in their local governments to bolster the protection of relatively recent sites that were key to the Chinese revolution.
The State Council released the expanded edition of the national list of precious ancient books, including 752 new entries, on Nov 2.
New entries include the world’s second-oldest known printed work, The Bodhisattva Maitreya’s Previous Life in Tusita Heaven (AD 927), and Libu Yunlyu ( The Concise Rhymes from the Ministry of Rites), which was published by the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) government and is widely hailed by academia as “one of the biggest discoveries of ancient Chinese books in recent years”.
In September, the National Library of China also hosted one of the largestscale exhibitions ever on the country’s restoration of ancient books. Twelve national-level ancient-book restoration centers have been set up.
In the summer of 2020, many southern provinces experienced the biggest floods in decades.
More than 500 cultural heritage sites, such as ancient monuments, buildings and bridges, were destroyed or damaged by floodwater. Seventysix were national-level structures, like the 500-year-old Zhenhai Bridge in Huangshan, Anhui province.
Nationwide, local governments took emergency measures to look for lost architectural components in the deluge for future restoration. Special funds were provided for their retrieval.
The National Cultural Heritage Administration announced a plan to research flood-proofing technologies tailored for historical sites in different places.
Cultural relics’ safety will also be included in the natural-disaster prevention and mitigation system, in which relics will be treated as key items.