MCLC: Cultural protection law

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Cultural protection law
Source: China Real Time, WSJ (2/26/16)
Cultural Protection Law Revision Triggers Doubts as China’s Economy Slow
By Liyan Qi
As China’s economic growth limps along, a proposed revision to a law designed to protect the country’s cultural heritage has drawn alarm from some archaeologists and activists, who say the change would hand too much power to local governments and make it easier for historic sites to be destroyed.
The draft, which was open for public comment until last month, is aimed at cutting red tape and making greater use of cultural resources, the Legislative Affairs Office of China’s State Council, or cabinet, said late December in a statement accompanying the revision’s release.
Though improvements were made, such as making cultural protection funds available for public scrutiny by including them in local authorities’ budgets, some changes could actually weaken existing protections, critics say.
The debate seems to have caught the attention of the country’s top decision makers. In a statement Wednesday following a weekly cabinet meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, the State Council described nonrenewable cultural resources as China’s “golden name card.”
“Strengthening the protection and reasonable utilization of cultural heritage … is of great importance to the inheritance of the Chinese culture,” the statement said.
The proposed revision removes an item in the law, last overhauled in 2002, which forbids all digging of underground artifacts by any individuals or organizations without government approval.
And rather than require most new construction projects to conduct archeological surveys before breaking ground, the revised law would only require such surveys to be conducted in government-designated “areas with underground artifacts” or at large construction sites outside those areas.
The revision would also hand over the authority to approve dislocation and demolition of some immovable cultural heritage to county governments from provincial governments, which would be responsible for supervising the execution of the law.
As of its latest national archaeological census in 2012, China has identified more than 766,000 instances of immovable cultural heritage, a broad category that includes historic buildings such as the Forbidden City, ancient monuments, tombs, temples and even cave systems.
If enacted, the changes would significantly limit the number of construction projects that must conduct archaeological surveys and would leave the law open to manipulation by local authorities, Han Jianye, a professor of archaeology at Renmin University of China, told China Real Time.
“The core question here is whether we still need to protect our cultural heritage while bolstering economic growth,” Mr. Han said.
In Beijing, for example, the municipal government has designated 56 sites as “areas with underground artifacts.” But most of them are located far from the city center, in outlying districts such as Fangshan and Miyun, according to the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage. There are no designated artifact areas in the city’s downtown Xicheng District and only one in neighboring Dongcheng District (which happens to be home to some of Beijing’s oldest architecture), meaning that city authorities have greater freedom to tear down old buildings and build new ones in those districts.
The Chinese economy, grappling with persisting industrial overcapacity, an overbuilt property market and high corporate debt levels, grew last year at the slowest pace in more than two decades.
Local governments, which have long relied on income from selling land use rights to developers, are finding themselves short of cash. Land sales revenue dropped 21.4% in 2015 from a year earlier, compared with an on-year increase of 3.2% for 2014, the latest official data shows.
“The reality is that local governments are still absolutely in need of land sales for revenue; thus, if they have a say on the dislocation and demolition of immovable cultural heritage, the consequences are unimaginable,” Zeng Yizhi, a longtime activist for preserving cultural heritage, wrote last month in an article posted on the WeChat social media account of the National Ancient Village Volunteers Network, a private nonprofit organization.
In what may perhaps be a harbinger of things to come, some local governments have already stirred controversy by demolishing cultural heritage sites.
Last month, the High People’s Court in central Henan province agreed to hear a case in which a nonprofit organization sued the local government of a town outside the provincial capital, Zhengzhou, for demolishing five immovable cultural heritage sites.
The local government in Henan’s Magu Village demolished five of seven local heritage sites to make room for an industrial park, the Dahe Daily provincial newspaper reported Tuesday. The village, which has a history dating back more than 1,000 years, now looks like a construction site, said the report, which included a photo showing a temple facing a pile of dirt next to a trench.
The proposed revision, which needs the approval of the country’s legislators in order to become law, has gained support from a wide range of government agencies, including the nation’s high court, the late December statement from the cabinet’s legislative arm said.
If the revision cannot be halted, follow-up policy measures could ensure that local governments don’t sacrifice cultural heritage for economic development, researchers say.
–Liyan Qi
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 29, 2016
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