International cooperation policies and measures
The Chinese government wishes to carry out multi-level international cultural exchanges in various forms and through diverse channels, for the purpose of maintaining the diversity of cultural expressions with other countries in the world.
As a developing country, China has accelerated its plans for international dissemination of its radio and cinema. On the TV side, China Central Television (CCTV) has laid in place a basic seven-channel framework of an English channel covering the entire globe, supplemented by Chinese, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian and Documentary channels. As concerns radio, China Radio International (CRI) has the world’s second-largest number of unshared-frequency overseas stations. In new audio-visual media, China Network TV (CNTV) has vigorously pursued the rollout of a global, multilingual, multi-terminal online video public service platform, one combining features of the Internet and TV and based around audio-visual interaction. CRI Online, a new CRI media platform is broadcast in 61 languages and is in regular operation by means of remote video editorial meetings with partners in Scandinavia and North America. It has established a new exploratory model in the shape of its remote management system for localized programming in foreign countries.
The Chinese government has always attached great importance to intercultural exchange and cooperation. So far, China has signed intergovernmental accords on cultural cooperation with 145 countries and nearly 800 yearly implementation agreements on cultural exchanges, and has kept up close cooperation with over 1,000 cultural institutions and organizations across the world. A total of 1,500 states and cities in 120 countries have established twinning relationships with Chinese counterparts; friendly cooperative relations have been forged with 458 civil society groups and organizations in 148 countries. According to incomplete statistics, over 30 “Cultural Years” and “Cultural Festivals” have been held or co-hosted by the Ministry of Culture since 2006.
In the past years, the Chinese government has been active in international cultural assistance, with a continuous increase of aid funds and diversification of forms of assistance. The main three forms currently adopted by the Ministry of Culture are material assistance, service assistance and human resource training. In the last few years, in line with new conditions facing cultural development in Asia and the requirements of the Beijing Action Plan formulated at the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, the Ministry of Culture has implemented projects such as the “10+3 Workshop on Cultural Human Resource Development and Cooperation” and the program of China-Africa mutual visits between cultural personnel.
The Ministry of Commerce also implements certain international cultural assistance projects, principally through construction projects of various large-scale public cultural infrastructures. From 2007 to 2010, 17 international cultural assistance projects were constructed, accounting for 8.5% of total international assistance projects in the same period. Another 20 cultural assistance projects are currently under construction. The Ministry of Commerce has held, as international assistance, 28 cultural training courses with 588 foreign participants, in fields including Chinese language, acrobatics and heritage restoration.
China at the same time receives cultural assistance from other countries. From 2007 to 2010, net receipts of non-reimbursable cultural assistance (excluding fiscal coordination and grant items relating to it) totaled 3.36 million USD, mainly in the field of heritage relics protection.