Visitors admire one of the exhibits of Afghan treasures on display in Beijing's Palace Museum in 2017. The exhibition was the result of cooperation between China and Afghanistan. (JIANG DONG / CHINA DAILY)
China signed joint statements on conserving cultural heritage with two neighboring countries on Tuesday, echoing a long-term commitment to better take care of relics and other items of historical value through cross-border efforts in Asia.
Through livestreaming platforms, the National Cultural Heritage Administration respectively signed bilateral joint statements on cooperation on the Asian Initiative for Cultural Heritage Conservation with the Ministry of Information and Culture of Afghanistan, and the National Heritage and Culture Division of Pakistan.
President Xi Jinping first proposed the Asian Initiative for Cultural Heritage Conservation in his keynote speech at the 2019 Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilization in Beijing.
On that occasion, Xi projected that the platform will offer support to better inherit the heritage of civilizations in Asian countries.
Tuesday witnessed the first two official bilateral statements under the framework of the initiative.
"The signing of the joint statements marks the initiative has gone beyond an idea to an action," says Li Qun, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration. "It thus has a groundbreaking significance."
The joint statements recognize that "Asia's cultural heritage as an important carrier of Asian civilizations is the source that enables Asian people to foster Asian identity and self-confidence and build a community of shared future for mankind".
The statements also say: "Pursuant to the principle of mutual respect, equal treatment, openness, and inclusion, and mutual learning from each other, (the countries) will carry out practical cooperation under the framework..."
According to the documents, the involved countries will introduce more long-term training programs. These will aim to promote academic and personnel exchanges, technical cooperation, and information sharing with respect to surveys, research, conservation, and utilization of cultural heritage. China will provide professional training for professionals and managers from the two countries.
Closer cooperation expands to restoration of monuments, surveying and mapping of heritage, conservation of underwater heritage as well as joint archaeology. More support will be given to transnational nominations for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage list, sharing experiences in management and monitoring of listed World Heritage sites.
The statements also benefit joint efforts on management, exhibition, and academic research of museum collections, as well as the fight against crimes involving cultural property. Combined efforts will be enhanced and used to build networks for return of cultural property and facilitate sharing of lost cultural objects.
China has already seen the fruit of working with the two countries in recent years on cooperation of cultural heritage. For example, the tour exhibition of the Bactrian Hoard－a collection of Afghan national treasures ranging from the third century BC to the first century AD－has attracted great interest among enthusiasts in China since 2017. And ancient Gandhara art in Pakistan amazed Chinese visitors at an exhibition in Beijing in 2018.
The Dunhuang Academy in Gansu province, which takes care of the World Heritage site Mogao Caves, maintains academic exchanges with the National Museum of Afghanistan, and rich discoveries have been made in an archaeological excavation of a prehistoric site near Islamabad, which was led by Nanjing University in Jiangsu province.
As the first concrete project under the framework of the joint statements, an online workshop for the three countries' conservators of stone objects was also opened on Tuesday, which was organized by Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage.
According to the National Cultural Heritage Administration, about 10 Asian countries have actively responded to the Asian Initiative for Cultural Heritage Conservation, including Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Azerbaijan. A dialogue forum on cultural heritage conservation of Asian countries will be organized in Beijing in October, and the two signed bilateral statements reveal that there is also a proposal to establish an Asian alliance for cultural heritage conservation in the near future.
