President Xi Jinping calls for preserving and promoting cultural relics and museums to carry forward Chinese civilization.
Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, central China’s Henan Province, on the day after the International Museum Day, May 19.
On May 19, one day after the International Museum Day, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, central China’s Henan Province. With 2,345 caves and alcoves, nearly 110,000 Buddhist statues, over 2,800 inscriptions, and nearly 80 pagodas, the Longmen Grottoes was recognized by UNESCO as the pinnacle of Chinese stone carving art.
Cultural relics and museums are the major embodiment of Chinese civilization as they display the physical evidence of China’s more than 5,000-year history. In his 2024 New Year message, President Xi cited notable examples of Chinese cultural relics and museums, emphasizing their significance in understanding and advancing Chinese civilization.
Xi said discoveries at the archeological sites of Liangzhu and Erlitou tell us much about the dawn of Chinese civilization. The ancient Chinese characters inscribed on the oracle bones of the Yin Ruins, the cultural treasures of the Sanxingdui Site, and the collections of the National Archives of Publications and Culture bear witness to the evolution of Chinese culture.
“All these stand as testament to the time-honored history of China and its splendid civilization. And all these are the sources from which our confidence and strength are derived,” Xi observed. Valuing their indispensable role in passing on and building upon our history, China has made significant strides in the preservation, promotion, and international exchange of cultural relics and museums.
The “Sanxingdui Encounter: A 12K Macro View of National Treasures” exhibition opens on the third floor of the Shanghai Museum East in Shanghai on February 2, 2024. It offers visitors an immersive cultural experience through technology and art.
Protection and Promotion
A museum enthusiast, Xi often visits museums during inspection tours to learn about their protection and development. For example, in September 2024, Xi visited the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum during his inspection tour in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. As China’s first museum dedicated to bronze culture, the museum focuses on the collection, research, and exhibition of bronzeware from the Shang and Zhou dynasties (c. 1600-256 B.C.), housing over 480,000 artifacts.
One of the most renowned pieces is He Zun, a bronze ritual wine vessel carrying the earliest written record of the term “Zhongguo,” the Chinese characters for “China.” After taking a close look at it, Xi remarked, “The 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization still holds much to be unearthed. We must delve deeper into and thoroughly interpret its meaning and spirit and do a good job of promoting the profound wisdom it contains.”
On many occcasions, Xi has repeatedly stressed the importance of cultural relics protection. In May 2022, at the 39th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he said, “Our leading officials at all levels must have a reverence for history and our fine traditional culture, give greater weight to protecting and utilizing cultural relics and preserving and passing down our cultural heritage, and provide more policy support for historical and archaeological workers to carry out research, further their studies, and conduct exchanges.”
When visiting the Longmen Grottoes in May, Xi inspected the overall layout and appearance of the grottoes, as well as representative caves and statues, and described the grottoes as treasures that embody the essence of Chinese culture, highlighting the significance of preserving, inheriting, and promoting them.
Guided by this vision, China has ramped up efforts to protect cultural relics. For example, this year’s Report on the Work of the Government outlined, “We will promote systematic protection of cultural heritage and improve our ability to protect and utilize cultural artifacts and intangible cultural heritage and to carry out archaeological research.”
On March 1, 2025, the newly revised Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics took effect. While maintaining the stability of the basic framework and system for cultural relics protection, the number of articles in it has increased from 80 to 101 across 8 chapters, with 19 new articles added and 75 articles revised. New systems have been established for the protection of underground relic burial zones and underwater cultural heritage zones, along with strengthened protection measures for unclassified immovable cultural relics.
The Longmen Grottoes Academy has long been committed to addressing three major challenges facing the site: rock collapses around the caves, weathering of the carvings, and water seepage within the grottoes. Through persistent research and the implementation of targeted conservation measures, including using steel anchor rods to reinforce the cliffs and injecting resin grout to seal cracks, significant progress has been made.
Today, the issues of unstable rock formations and water seepage on both the eastern and western cliffs have been effectively resolved. As a result, the overall environment of the grottoes has been greatly enhanced, and the ancient Longmen Grottoes now shines with renewed vitality.
As early as 2013, Xi called for national efforts to make the cultural relics once kept in imperial palaces, the heritage sites spread across China, and the words written in ancient books all come alive. Alongside these preservation projects, creative new ways to engage the public have also since emerged.
One approach is developing cultural and creative products. Recently, two types of exquisite fridge magnets inspired by an empress phoenix crown from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), released by the National Museum of China, have become a sensation. In just eight months since they were launched, over one million units have been sold, driving the total sales of the entire phoenix crown cultural and creative product line to exceed RMB 100 million.
Meanwhile, digital technologies are helping provide an immersive experience to visitors. In 2024, the Sanxingdui Museum launched a large-scale VR immersive experience project called “Discovering Sanxingdui – Archaeological Excavation Site of the Sacrificial Pits,” using real-scene VR technology to offer visitors mesmerizing participation, significantly enhancing public engagement with cultural heritage.
He Zun, a cultural relic unearthed in 1963 from Baoji, northwest China’s Shaanxi, is displayed in the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum on March 25, 2025. It is one of the first batch of Chinese cultural relics which China does not allow to be exhibited abroad.
International Exchange
International exchanges on cultural relics and between museums create a channel for their value to bring people together. On diplomatic occasions, they play unique roles in fostering understanding and exchanges between countries. In March 2019, during Xi’s visit to France, French President Emmanuel Macron gifted him a precious French edition of Introduction to the Analects of Confucius published in 1688. Xi said, “This is a very valuable gift. I will take it back and have it preserved in the National Library of China.” Separately, in the first China-Central Asia Summit chaired by Xi in 2023, He Zun souvenirs were presented as diplomatic gifts to Central Asian leaders, symbolizing enduring friendship and cultural connection.
Chinese museums have also cooperated with their foreign counterparts to launch a series of special exhibitions, allowing Chinese people to appreciate other cultures. For example, the exhibition “On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt,” organized by the Shanghai Museum and the Supreme Council of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt, which kicked off in July 2024, has attracted over two million visitors, setting a global record for the highest number of visitors to a single ticketed special exhibition of cultural relics in any museum.
In addition, through international exchanges, some lost Chinese artifacts have been repatriated. In May 2025, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art returned to China the volumes II and III of Zidanku Silk Manuscript, namely Wuxing Ling and Gongshou Zhan, the earliest silk text discovered to date in China.
At the handover ceremony, Xie Feng, Chinese ambassador to the United States, described the return as a cultural milestone and a testament to the growing cooperation between China and the United States in heritage preservation. He noted that the two countries have made notable progress in this field, with around 600 artifacts returned to China to date, injecting new vitality into cultural exchanges and deepening bilateral friendship.
In a 2023 meeting with Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, President Xi reaffirmed China’s commitment to continuously improving the capacity for heritage protection, and promoting mutual learning and inclusive cooperation among various civilizations.
Cultural relics and museums are not only guardians of the past but also bridges to the future. In recent years, China has intensified its efforts to preserve, promote, and share its civilizational legacy with the rest of the world. These initiatives reflect a broader vision to anchor national confidence in cultural roots, while fostering global cultural dialogue and cooperation.
