On the legal protection of cultural, natural and intangible heritage in China

Abstract

With a long, splendid and unique cultural history, China is extremely rich with cultural heritage. The enormous variety and the tremendous amount of cultural heritage are the priceless treasuries not only of Chinese people, but also of humanity as a whole. This article provides an in-depth examination of the current Chinese legal regime for heritage protection. Therefore, mainly based on data like historical documents, academic researches, government laws and regulations documents, this paper attempts to study the historical evolution of the notion of “heritage” and the cultural, natural and intangible heritage legal protection in the contemporary China (after 1949). The article argues that even though China has significantly improved and reformed its domestic law there are still shortcomings in the implementation of the international instruments that it has concluded or acceded to.