Material No.1 for the Press Conference of the State Council Information Office

Implement the Spirits of the National Work Conference on Improving Rural Living Environment and Strengthen the Protection and Development of Traditional Villages

17 October 2013

Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Information Office

The protection of traditional villages composes an important part of improving the living environment of rural population. President Xi Jinping has recently given important instructions that it is of great importance to summarize the experience of Zhejiang Province in carrying out and promoting the project of "Setting Thousands of Villages as Examples and Improving Ten Thousand Villages". In conducting rural construction in various areas, it is required to adhere to principles of considering local conditions, guiding as per categories, planning in advance, improving mechanism, highlighting the important points, and co-coordinating development in a balanced manner to significantly improve the rural production and living conditions with the long-term and arduous efforts. This year, during his visit to Dongshan village, Ezhou, Hubei Province, President Xi pointed out that in building beautiful countryside, it is important to prevent massive demolition and reconstruction, and in particular, to protect ancient villages. In light of President Xi’s instruction, relevant central authorities summarized experience gained from the Zhejiang project in a timely manner. On October 9, a national work conference on improving rural living environment was held in Tonglu, Zhejiang Province. Premier Li Keqiang gave specific instructions to the conference stressing that improvement of rural living environment carries the new expectation of the hundreds of millions of farmers, and it is required that relevant departments in all regions should take the attitude of down-to-earth, conduct overall planning, take into consideration of local conditions and capability restriction, maintain the dominant position of farmers, respect their willing, highlight the rural characteristics, promote traditional culture, and comprehensively improve rural living environment to accelerate the building of beautiful countryside. Vice Premier Wang Yang attended the conference and delivered a speech emphasizing the importance of protecting historic culture in the process of improving rural living environment. Governments at all levels and relevant authorities should attach great importance to the work. At present, the most urgent task is to obtain comprehensive information on the traditional villages, improve national and provincial list of the villages, step up efforts to make development plans and files, and identify responsibility holders. We should enhance the sense of historic responsibility, and should not let the traditional villages disappear in our generation. One of the important points of the experience from the Zhejiang Province project of "Setting Thousands of Villages as Examples and Improving ten thousand Villages" also underline the promotion of traditional culture and protection of traditional villages.

It is reported that the work of protecting traditional villages during the past year has made much progress.

First, a thorough nationwide survey has been carried out. In April 2012, the three ministries launched a thorough national survey on traditional villages. Villages with traditional architectural style and locational features or villages where intangible cultural heritages are passing down from generations to generations have all been identified as the subjects of the survey. A total of 12,000 traditional villages have been reported, and thus, basic information regarding the preservation of their historical and cultural resources as well as their social and economic status has been unveiled. It is the first survey of this kind in China.

Second, a mechanism of expert counseling has been established. An expert committee with Feng Jicai as the chairman has been set up. The members of expert committee, recommended by the three ministries, include authoritative experts in architecture, history, culture, folklore, economics, social and other fields. The expert committee is responsible for providing overall technical guidance and consultation for strategic decision-making and studying policies supporting the protection and development of traditional villages.

Third, an initial national protection list has been formulated. Evaluation and identification indicators for traditional villages have been prescribed, and the traditional villages have been categorized based on their different conservation values. Up to now, the three ministries have named two batches of traditional villages totaling 1561, among which the first batch of 646 were named by the end of 2012 and the second batch of 915 were named in August 2013.

Fourth, the guiding principles in protection and development of traditional villages have been formulated. The three ministries issued “The Guides to Strengthening the Protection and Development of Traditional Villages" which makes clear the point that the protection and development of traditional villages must adhere to the principle of planning in advance, and there should be no relocating or merging of such villages without approval. It is also proposed that a labeling protection system and an exit mechanism of the list should be established.

Fifth, funding for technical study and making protection and development plans for the traditional villages has been secured.

The protection and development of traditional villages has a long way to go, and currently there are some problems that need to be addressed immediately. Listed below are the four main problems:

First, only a limited number of traditional villages survive. During the process of industrialization and urbanization in the past decades, a large number of traditional villages disappeared. The number of existing traditional villages accounts for only 1.9% of the total number of administrative villages. Experts estimate that, there are currently less than 5000 traditional villages with important conservation value.

Second, traditional villages lag behind in terms of development. A large number of traditional villages are located in underdeveloped poor areas with low incomes and poverty rate being 7 percentage points higher than the national average level.

Third, support for traditional villages is insufficient. Support to the protection of traditional villages is still relatively modest, and measures to support the development of villages are not enough.

Fourth, the management guidance is weak. Management personnel in towns and villages are not well-educated enough and it is common for them to fail in abiding by laws and to perform destructive construction. There are no mature models and methods in protection work and the level to provide guidance, supervision and training still remains to be improved.

Regarding the next step, the core is to establish long-term protection and management mechanism. The three ministries plan to spend 3-5 years to obtain comprehensive information about the traditional villages and develop protection and supporting policies to protect and inherit the cultural heritages and significantly improve the production and living conditions in the traditional villages. Recently, it is proposed to focus on the following tasks:

First, improve the list of the Chinese traditional villages and make records accordingly. We should continue to carry out village surveys, mobilize experts and community to make recommendations as soon as possible and obtain comprehensive information about the traditional villages. We should develop relatively complete list of traditional villages and provide guidance in identifying traditional villages at provincial, municipal and county level. Surveys of Chinese traditional villages should be conducted and records should be made according to the principle of "one village one record".

Second, formulate national medium and long-term protection and development plan. We should work to outline the general guidelines, objectives and priorities of the efforts to protect and develop traditional villages, identify key protection areas, and propose protection and development measures.

Third, improve the protection and management mechanism, and strengthen supervision and management. We should guide local governments to formulate plans for the protection and development of traditional villages and strengthen the implementation and management to regulate the disordered construction activities. It is essential to improve laws and regulations, enhance management system for protection and development, and establish an alert system for endangered traditional villages. It is essential to make clear the responsibilities for the protection and development of traditional villages and build a public opinions supervision system with participation from the whole society.

Fourth, improve the means of supporting and promote the use of traditional resources. We should support the newly listed traditional villages in their efforts to make protection and development plans. We should guide and support local governments to set up pilots for protecting endangered villages. Relying on the historical and cultural resources of traditional villages, we should make use of traditional resources to innovate in cultural creativity and enhance various development models including science education, recreation and tourism.

Fifth, increase efforts in publicity and education. Portals for traditional villages need to be set up to publicize basic knowledge and build public platform for exchanges. We could organize activities and competition in photography, logo design and advertising for public welfare. At the same time, we could also mobilize celebrities and the public to participate in the activities to enhance publicity. We could work with CCTV and other news media to launch a series of promotional activities including production of feature documentary to discover the charm of traditional villages and to raise the public awareness of protection. In addition, we need to organize scientific research institutes, colleges and universities to give technical guidance to promote training for grass-root technical teams and improve their level in the protection and development of traditional villages.