Backgrounder for the Press Conference of the State Council Information Office

Reform and Development of China’s Cultural Sector: Progresses in 2013 & Key Tasks in 2014

February 24, 2014

Ministry of Culture, People’s Republic of China

1.        Reform and Development of China’s Cultural Sector: Progresses in 2013

1.1  Institutional reform in the cultural sector has been deepened.

1.1.1 Reform on the administrative license system has been reinforced. Up to now, the Ministry of Culture of China has abolished 3 items and delegated 6 items to lower levels of cultural administrations, retaining only 4 administrative license items under its jurisdiction, namely, the licensing for the setup of Chinese-foreign joint venture or co-operative performing arts agencies, licensing for the setup of China-foreign joint venture or cooperative operators of performing arts and show venues, content review on internet cultural products imported by internet cultural service providers, and intangible cultural heritage research and investigation conducted by foreign organizations or individuals in over 2 provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities in China. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has abolished 3 administrative license items and delegated 1 item to lower levels of cultural heritage administrations.

1.1.2. Cultural policies and legislation have been updated and improved. The Regulations on Museums is now under deliberation by the executive meeting of the State Council. The Law on Public Libraries is undergoing intensified research. Amendments to the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics and formulation of relevant regulations and charters on the Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage have made more progresses. The drafting of the Law on the Standards of Public Cultural Services and the Law on the Promotion of Cultural Industries is now being included into the legislative agenda of the government.

1.1.3 Reform on the state-owned cultural and art troupes has been deepened. The Guiding Opinions on Supporting the Reform and Development of State-Owned Cultural and Art Troupes, promulgated by the Ministry of Culture, the CPC Publicity Department and 6 government departments and ministries, has consolidated the policy support to the corporatization and reform of state-owned troupes.

1.1.4 Reform on integrated law enforcement in the cultural market has been accelerated. Up to now, China has set up 30 provincial-level and 1766 municipal-and-county-level cultural market administration offices as well as 10 provincial-level and 2875 municipal-and-county-level integrated law enforcement units across the country. Work assessment of cultural market administration offices has become an integral part of the overall annual performance evaluation of integrated law enforcement departments on the provincial level.

1.2  More effective support has been given to the creation of cultural and art works.

1.2.1 Following the principle of hosting festivals in an economical way and for the benefit of the general public, the 10^th China Arts Festival has been held successfully. The Festival has featured 133 excellent performing arts programs from home and abroad, 647 artworks in exhibitions, and had over 600,000 visitor attendances. The top prize of this Festival, Wenhua Award (Splendor Award) was given to 14 works of performing arts and 21 performing artists, and the prize for amateur artists and community culture, the Qunxin Award (Galaxy Award), gave honor to 220 works, 110 programs and 100 artists or cultural workers. A trade fair on the performing arts products was held during the Festival, producing a contracted turnover of 902 million RMB.

1.2.2 Major art projects and programs were organized to encourage creativity in various art disciplines. 15 key theatrical works have been subsidized as identified in Works of Excellence on the Nation's Stage project. 20 brilliant and award-winning repertoire works have been staged in more than 1,000 performances on an organized Tour of Outstanding Repertoire Works with more than 800,000 audience attendances, getting a total profit of 18 million RMB. By organizing a performance Season for State-owned National-level Art Troupes, 65 performances of 27 productions have been presented by 9 state-level art troupes. In the field of fine arts, the organization of the Exhibition Season of Selected Works from Public Art Museums showcased 3200 artworks to more than 1.5 million visitors. The Plan for the Protection and Support of Local and Traditional Operas has been designed and implemented. Other stimulus programs also include National Project of Artworks on Major Realistic Themes, National Project for the Fostering of Fine Arts and National Project for the Collection of Major Artworks.

1.3  Steady progress has been made in the development of public cultural service system.

1.3.1 Investment for public cultural service has been continuously increased. In 2013, the functioning budget of the Ministry of Culture for public cultural services was 4.521 billion RMB and special subsidy from the Central Government for local development allocated for this area was 4.28 billion RMB, increasing by 27.46% and 10% respectively comparing to those of the previous year. 3.688 billion RMB has been invested for the expansion of China National Academy of Painting, Theater of the Central Opera of China, and such projects as the renovation or establishment of National Art Museum of China and China National Arts and Crafts Museum.

1.3.2 The development of the Model Bases (Projects) for National Public Cultural Service System has proven to be effective. By setting up standards for qualified Public Cultural Service Model Bases and Exemplary Programs, the Ministry of Culture has given a strong impetus to the improvement of public cultural services nationwide. After careful assessment, 31 cities and 45 programs were identified as Model Bases and Exemplary Programs in the first batch, and 32 cities and 57 programs have been listed into the second batch. For the development of the first batch of Model Bases and 45 exemplary Projects, 305 million RMB of central budget subsidy has helped to leverage more than 15 billion RMB from the local budget of 31 cities, and 45.5 million RMB of central budget subsidy has helped to leverage more than 3 billion RMB investment from the hosting localities of the 47 projects. In the meantime, many explorations, effective measures and models in the provision of public cultural services have also been found in different regions.

1.3.3 Remarkable achievements have been made in public digital cultural services. At present, 2,843 municipal and county centers, 29,555 township (urban community) service stations and 602,000 village (rural community) service stations have been digitally equipped under the National Project for the Sharing of Cultural Information and Resources, with a database of information resources the size of 200 TB being established and 28,639 public electronic reading rooms being built. 33 provincial and 374 municipal libraries have launched the Digital Library Project, and the digital resources stored in the libraries of and above municipal level have reached 6000 TB.

1.3.4 Advancements have been made in providing more equitable and standard public cultural services. A plan for the standardization of basic public cultural services and building of public cultural service system in poverty-stricken areas has been drafted, and a working plan to establish the coordination mechanism concerning the development of public cultural service system is being installed.

1.3.5 Cultural services have been provided to benefit more people. In the spirit of “3 Welfares the Countryside” (namely culture, science and technology and hygienic health), national-level state-owned art troupes have presented about 80 free performances to more than 300,000 rural audiences. To implement the project of “High Arts on Campus”, 237 performances have been presented to about 400,000 teachers and students in higher education institutions. The community culture showcase program named “Passions from the Land” and the cultural service volunteering project named “Spring Rain” gave stage to 382 events in more than 120 cultural programs, benefiting about a million audiences.

1.4 Cultural industries have been boosted steadily and rapidly.

1.4.1 More studies have been made to formulate new policies to boost cultural industries. Together with other related departments, the Ministry of Culture have taken part in the drafting of the Opinions on Further Incorporating Cultural Creativity into Relevant Industries, and the formulation of policies to intensify cooperation between cultural and financial fields, promote external cultural trade and support micro-and-small-sized cultural enterprises. The Ministry has also taken part in the formulation of the Catalogue of Guidance for Encouraged Industries in Western Areas of China, and facilitated the launching of the tax preference policies for animation and cartoon industries.

1.4.2 There was more collaboration between cultural and financial institutions. By May, 2013 (the month when annual reports come out), the Ministry-Bank cooperation mechanism has mobilized an overall loan of 36.691 billion RMB to support 151 projects by key cultural enterprises. The first database of culture-finance joint credit projects has been established, and 92 key cultural credit projects have received 460 million RMB of interest discount loans.   

1.4.3 Key cultural industry fairs have generated good returns. The turnover of the China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair and China Yiwu Cultural Products Fair were 166.5 billion RMB and 4.83 billion RMB, increasing by 15.99% and 6.92% respectively comparing to those of the previous year.

1.4.4 Cultural market prospered in an orderly way. We have revised Measures for the Administration of Entertainment Venues, and formulated regulations including the Administrative Measures for the Content Self-review of Internet Culture Business Entities. We facilitated the preparatory work for establishing nationwide trade associations in such areas as cultural entertainment and artworks, and provided guidance for the trade associations of performing arts and internet services to regulate themselves. We set up standards for art market supervision and started to regulate artwork verification services. We adjusted the market entry policies for internet access provision services, and guided the restructuring and upgrading of internet service providers.

1.5 The safeguarding of cultural heritage has been enhanced.

1.5.1 The first nationwide census on state-owned movable cultural heritage was launched. With working plans formulated, and related institutions and working teams formed, we have finished the investigation on state-owned institutions with collections of cultural heritage items so far.

1.5.2 Efforts have been made to continuously protect immovable cultural heritages. The State Council has ratified and announced the 7^th list of major historical and cultural sites protected at the state level, which included 1943 sites, raising the total number of such sites to 4295. Final review of cultural relics protection status was also conducted in Danjiangkou Reservoir area under South-North Water Transfer Project before the impoundment. Review of candidates for the second list of national-level archeological site parks and South China Sea underwater archeological programs were also carried out.

1.5.3 We continued to improve the system of inventories of intangible cultural heritage. In order to make ICH protection more accountable, we identified and updated the protection institutions responsible for the protection of items on the first, second and third lists of national intangible cultural heritage, reviewed and identified 433 institutions for the first and second national lists, and 548 institutions for the third national list. We also launched the assessment and identification process for the candidate items for the fourth national list of representative intangible cultural heritage.

1.5.4 More scientific and categorized measures have been taken in intangible cultural heritage protection. We launched the recording of representative inheritors of the national intangible cultural heritage items as a measure to salvage heritage, completed the assessment and identification of the second list of national model bases for the productive protection of intangible cultural heritage, started to build infrastructure for ICH protection and utilization, and formulated the evaluation criteria for cultural ecology reserves.

1.5.5 Zhusuan, or Chinese abacus, was officially listed into the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in December 2013. So far, 38 items of Chinese heritage has been listed as World Intangible Cultural Heritage, making China the country with most inscribed items in the world. Among the 38, 30 were inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, 7 in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding, and 1 in the Register of Best Safeguarding Practices.

1.5.6 Public-awareness programs about cultural heritage gained good effects, featured by the organization of such events as the 4^th China Chengdu International Festival on Intangible Cultural Heritage and the 8^th Cultural Heritage Day nationwide.

1.5.7 The protection of ancient books was further advanced. The State Council of China has released the fourth list of valuable ancient books under state protection with 1516 books, and the fourth list of 16 important collection institutions of ancient books under national protection. National census and documentation of ancient books were launched across the nation.

1.6 There is more dynamic and successful cultural bonding between China’s mainland and Hong Kong and Macao SARs and Taiwan, and China’s cultural exchange with foreign countries in the world.

1.6.1 “Happy Chinese New Year” is becoming a global attraction. With 385 events held in 251 cities of 99 countries and regions, supported by 29 provinces, regions and municipalities from China, the global celebration of the Chinese New Year has become a great hit, making the Chinese culture more accessible to the world.

1.6.2 Intellectual and cultural dialogue and interaction between China and world was further promoted. We have hosted and participated in more than 20 such high-level events including the 10^th Cultural Ministers’ Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the first China-Germany Leadership Forum and the first Symposium on Sinologists and International Cultural Dialogue. 

1.6.3 The development of overseas China Cultural Centers was accelerated. Now, there are a total of 14 overseas China Cultural Centers. In 2013, China Cultural Centers in Mexico and Nigeria were officially inaugurated, and those in Bangkok, Moscow and Madrid began to function. Already-functioning Cultural Centers include China Cultural Centers in Mauritius, Benin, Egypt, Paris, Malta, Republic of Korea, Berlin, Tokyo and Mongolia.

1.6.4 Efforts were made to expand the platforms for external cultural trade. We have identified 232 enterprises and 34 projects as key enterprises and projects for cultural export at national level (2011-2012), organized cultural enterprises to participate in international exhibitions and fairs, established the Alliance for the International Promotion of Chinese Culture, and supported the development of Beijing and Shanghai international cultural trade bases.

1.6.5 Cultural bonding with Hong Kong and Macao SARs and Taiwan was further advanced. We continued to organize major cultural bonding programs including in-depth tour of Chinese culture by cultural dignitaries, gala nights in celebration of traditional festivals, and initiated such new programs as Mid-Autumn Lantern Fair and Arts across the Straits youth program.

2.        Reform and Development of China’s Cultural Sector: Key tasks in 2014

2.1 Accelerating the mechanism innovation of cultural administrative and management system

2.1.1 Promoting the functional transformation of the government

We should advance the reform on administrative license system, deepen administrative streamlining and power delegation, and strengthen process management and post-program supervision. More research must be done to promote cultural legislation. We should revise the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics, make efforts to formulate the Law on Public Libraries and Regulations on Museums, continue to do research for formulation of the Law on the Standards of Public Cultural Services and the Law on the Promotion of Cultural Industries, and improve the relevant regulations and charters on the Law on Intangible Cultural Heritage.

2.1.2 Deepening structural reform of state-owned cultural and art troupes

We should facilitate the implementation of the Guiding Opinions on Supporting the Reform and Development of State-Owned Cultural and Art Troupes, promulgated by nine ministries, foster major performing art enterprises, and urge the art troupes which remain public institutions to adopt enterprise management modes.

2.1.3 Promoting the reform of cultural institutions according to their nature. We should clearly stipulate the roles of cultural institutions, establish corporate governance in these institutions and improve their performance evaluation mechanisms. We should also encourage the formation of board of directors in public libraries, museums, cultural centers and scientific centers.

2.2 Promoting the development and prosperity of cultural undertakings and cultural industries

2.2.1 Speeding up the building of a modern public cultural service system. We will establish coordination mechanisms for the development of this system, better integrate various resources, and work to set up comprehensive cultural service centers. Research will be conducted to set up indexes for the public cultural service system, including quality, equity and accessibility requirements, technical standards and performance evaluation criteria, so as to ensure that basic and qualified public cultural services shall be provided to all people in an equal way. We shall make research to draft the Opinions on Accelerating the Building of a Modernized Public Cultural Service System. The point-to-point aid mechanism should be improved, and poverty-ridden regions with large scales should receive particular attention to ensure their continuous and balanced cultural development. We should continue to establish model bases (projects) of national public cultural service system and implement the National Project for the Sharing of Cultural Information and Resources, Digital Library Project and Public Electronic Reading Room Project. The standardization of public service evaluation should be promoted, and the public evaluation and feedback mechanism be established. Public involvement and participation of the private sector shall become a direction for the building of public cultural service system.  

2.2.2 A sound and modern cultural market system should be put in place. We should accelerate the development of product markets for cartoon, animation and games, performing arts, entertainment and digital culture, and promote the orderly development of market for such elements as property rights, copyrights, technology and information. Trials for transforming and upgrading internet service providers should be carried out. We should facilitate the establishment of national trade associations in the areas of cultural entertainment and artworks, guide the trade associations into studying and formulating trade regulations for art galleries, artwork identification and business operation.

2.2.3 Promoting rapid development of the cultural industry. We will continue to select and name national model bases of cultural industry development, implement plans to support cultural financing, explore ways to build cultural financing service centers and experimental zones for cooperation between cultural and financial sectors. The special policies in favor of small and micro cultural enterprises and creative business talents should be formulated. We will transform and upgrade China Yiwu Cultural Products Fair, organize the 10^th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair and 10^th China CCG Expo with high quality. Research should be done to figure out how to increase cultural consumption.

2.2.4 Promoting artistic creation and production. We will organize art creation programs under the themes of Chinese Dream and Celebration of the 65^th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, and major art projects including the Works of Excellence on the Nation's Stage Project, Project of Supporting Chinese Ethnic Music Development and National Project on Fine Art Collection. We will present quality art events such as Jingju Art Festival, showcasing of local operas all over China, opera festival, poem festival, national exhibition of fine arts, national exhibition of public arts, performance season of national-level art troupes, and national vocal competition. The plans for supporting such art forms as Jingju, Kunqu, other local operas and fine arts will be implemented. We will formulate the Development Plan of National Art Funds and the application guiding lines in 2014, and start the application, evaluation, contract signing and implementation process of the programs. Literary and art criticism will be promoted in a constructive and healthy way.

2.3 Establishing the inheritance system for good traditional cultures

2.3.1 Strengthen the protection of cultural heritage. We will continue to carry out the census on movable cultural heritage all over China, and the identification, recording and documentation of cultural relics collected by state-owned entities. We will make efforts to ensure that the sites in the 7^th list of the key historical and cultural sites under the state protection should specify scope of protection, put up signs and notices, establish records and files, set up special institutes or assign full-time personnel to take care of the management of the sites.

2.3.2 Promoting the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage. We will evaluate the candidates for the 4^th National List of Representative Intangible Cultural Heritages, keep on recording representative inheritors of the national intangible cultural heritage items as measures to salvage heritage, reinforcing infrastructure construction for intangible cultural heritage protection and initiate trial programs for digital intangible cultural heritage administration system. The spiritual richness of festivals should be further explored, and publicity programs and showcases of intangible cultural heritage such as Intangible Cultural Heritage Day should be organized.

2.4 Strengthening cultural bonding with Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan, and enhancing cultural exchange with foreign countries

2.4.1 Enhancing cultural diplomacy with neighboring countries by organizing quality events, including China-ASEAN Year of Cultural Exchange, Cultural Capital of East Asia and China-Russia Year of Youth Exchange.

2.4.2 Organizing major cultural exchange programs. Efforts will be made to present flagship cultural exchange programs including Happy Chinese New Year, Cultural Years with other countries, Chinese Cultural Festival, Meet in Beijing and Cultural Tour along the Silk Road.

2.4.3 Promoting cultural and intellectual exchange. We will continue to organize international exchange programs involving world sinologists, facilitate the Chinese Culture Translation and Studies Support (CCTSS) program and support the translation of contemporary Chinese literature.

2.4.5 Speeding up the development of overseas China Cultural Centers. We will encourage the local governments of China to finance or co-finance the establishment and operation of overseas China Cultural Centers with the Ministry of Culture, and facilitate the involvement of social organizations and Chinese enterprises and institutions abroad in their establishment and functioning.

2.4.5 Promoting cultural bonding with Hong Kong, Macao SARs and Taiwan. We will improve the long-term and efficient cooperation mechanisms, and enrich the cultural exchange programs such as the cultural tour and youth programs.

2.4.6 Advancing cultural trade. We will facilitate the development of external cultural trade bases in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, establish export-oriented cultural industry cluster zones, and make full use of the experience from Shanghai Free Trade Zone to advance the development and innovation of external cultural trade.