China Issues 15th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Heritage Protection and Inheritance

Key points

• Issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council, the plan requires implementation by all regions and departments and is drafted under the 15th Five-Year Plan outline.
• Main goals: by 2030, heritage resources fully mapped, the regulatory system basically straightened out, laws and regulations improved, and a broad heritage-protection framework basically formed.
• It calls for consolidating the fourth national cultural relics census, conducting a second national movable-relic census and a second national intangible cultural heritage census, and building a national heritage resource catalogue and big database.
• It promotes enacting a cultural heritage protection law, revising implementation rules for the cultural relics protection law, museum regulations and historic city/town/village protection regulations, and revising the intangible cultural heritage law.
• It requires protection-first steps in urban and rural construction: "survey before construction" and "archaeology before land transfer."
• It coordinates protection of the Great Wall, Grand Canal, Long March, Yellow River and Yangtze River national cultural parks and implements listed protection.
• It regulates reasonable and moderate use of heritage, guarding against valuing use over protection, tourism over culture, and excessive commercial development.
• The office of the Central Cultural Heritage Protection Commission will conduct a mid-term evaluation by end-2028 and a final evaluation by end-2030.