Cultural Heritage Protection in the People's Republic of China: the Import and Export of Cultural Relics

Abstract

Nowadays China is easily recognized as one of the main actors in the international political and economic landscape, however there is another area in which China has been able to slowly impose its presence: cultural heritage protection. Considering that China is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of cultural heritage and one of the most active source countries within international organizations in advocating for a better legal framework to ensure protection of national heritage, it may prove especially interesting to carry out an in-depth analysis of the elements characteristic of the current Chinese legal protection system. In particular, this reasearch will focus on the existing import and export procedures to try and verify whether the same format is applied or instead more restrictions can be expected when exporting compared to importing, whether national policies are in line with international standards and whether this will have any effects on the currently growing Chinese cultural heritage and art market.