Protection of ICH in China

　　Recent years have witnessed a long-standing development of the protection work of intangible cultural heritage, mainly reflected as follows:

　　1. Legislation

　　Since 1998, the Ministry of Culture and Committee of Education, Science, Culture, Health and Sports of National People's Congress have been actively engaged in the research and survey of domestic and foreign legislations and on this basis organized the drafting of Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Folk and Ethnic Traditional Culture (Draft), and referred it to the National People's Congress in August, 2002. In August, 2004, China officially joined the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage after ratification of the Standing Committee of National People's Congress. The draft law has been renamed as a Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage. At present, a legislative leadership panel composed of personnel from the National People's Congress, Department of Publicity of the CPC Central Committee and Ministry of Culture has been established to further work on the draft law. At present, statutes on the protection of folk and ethnic traditional culture were also promulgated one after another by Yunnan, Guizhou, Fujian provinces, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xiangxi county of Hunan province, Enshi county of Hubei province, and Suzhou city of Jiangsu province.

　　2. Working mechanism

　　In the year 2003, the leadership panel of the project of protecting folk and ethnic culture with the members from the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Finance, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and some other related departments set up a committee composed of experts from various fields. The leadership panel offices and research center were also set up respectively under the Ministry of Culture and the Chinese Art Research Institute.

　　In 2005, the Inter-ministerial Joint Committee on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage was founded. The joint committee is composed of the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of education, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Construction, the State Bureau of Tourism, the Bureau of Religious Affairs and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

　　In 2006, in order to implement the Circular on Strengthening the Protection of Cultural Heritage issued by the State Council, on the basis of the nine departments, the general office of the State Council took the lead to include the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of National Land Resources, the General Administration of Customs, the State Administration of Forestry, Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council, and some other departments into the joint committee and formed a national leadership panel of cultural heritage protection composed of 15 departments, which has strengthened the coordination and cooperation among different departments. At present, all the related protection work of intangible cultural heritage is under steady development.

　　3. Related documents

　　In keeping with the spirit of the 16th CPC Party Congress on "supporting the protection of important cultural heritage and fine folk arts" and to meet China's obligations after its accession into the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance collaborated to issue the Circular on the Implementation of the Project of Protecting China's Ethnic and Folk Culture. On March 31, 2005, the General Office of the State Council promulgated the Recommendations on Intensifying the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in China, a directive to further the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China. On December 23, 2005, the State Council promulgated the Circular on Strengthening the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, proposing that, since 2006, the second Saturday of every June will be designated as National Cultural Heritage Day in China, which has provided a strong guarantee for the intensification of cultural heritage protection.