Originating from the same source as the mainland, the cultures of Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions (SARs) have formed their own diverse features due to the particular colonial history. After their return, thanks to the joint efforts by the governments and visionary people from the cultural and art circles of both the mainland and the two cities, the channels, scale and levels of the cultural exchange have been improved by constant cooperation between the mainland and the two cities, thus achieving breakthroughs in culture inheritance and innovation. As the national administrative department for culture, China’s Ministry of Culture has always fully supported the governments of Hong Kong and Macau to enhance their cultural causes through strengthening cultural exchange and cooperation including promoting exchange in excellent show and exhibition projects and personnel exchange, holding major cultural activities of brands, increasing cooperation in commercial cultural industries, encouraging the two-way flows of cultural talents and facilitating the cultural exchange between the youngsters from the mainland and Hong Kong and Macau. During the exchange and cooperation, the sense of identification for the Chinese culture has been consolidated and the complementarity of each side’s culture has become prominent. To promote the inheritance and innovation for the Chinese culture is not only the common wish for the people from the mainland and Hong Kong and Macau but also a glorious mission for all the Chinese people. How to join our hands to enhance the inheritance and innovation for the Chinese culture is the very issue all my colleagues who are present here should face and consider. To this end, I have four suggestions to put forward for your deliberation. In the first place, we should deepen our understanding of Chinese culture. The primary job of inheriting and innovating our culture is to first fully understand it. Although we have been surrounded by this culture since the day we were born, few people dare say that he or she has totally grasped our culture. As being diverse and integrated, the Chinese culture is so broad and profound that even people working in cultural circles like us are often amazed by it. That’s why we should revere this culture created and shaped by our ancestors over the past thousands of years. However, we should also be modest about our culture and avoid being arrogant. We need to be alert about the dregs of the culture while absorbing the cream of it. We should not only see the historical and current opportunities facing our culture but also be sober about the huge challenges confronting our contemporary society.

Secondly, we should establish the working mechanism for promoting the Chinese culture’s inheritance and innovation. In the framework of the “one country, two systems” policy, the mainland, along with Hong Kong and Macau, should actively explore a stable working mechanism to offer norms and institutions for the culture inheritance and innovation. We should conform with and enrich the “one country, two systems” policy by disseminating the traditional Chinese culture in Hong Kong and Macau SARs while introducing the two cities’ unique cultures to the mainland. We should set up a cooperation system with various channels, multiple platforms and rich content. We need to explore and integrate more funds and form a strong force in arranging and using the money. As for project designing, it is better to combine elegance with popularity in projects with taking a reasonable length of time to present classics and excellent works. Hong Kong and Macau should make the best of the preferential policies in the document called

Arrangements about closer trade and business ties and its five supplementary agreements to deepen the exchange and cooperation in the culture field with the mainland.

Thirdly, we should create a favorable environment for the Chinese culture’s inheritance and innovation. China’s central government has highlighted the importance of this task. It is now pushing forward a number of projects including protecting China’s intangible cultural heritages, book-compiling for the Qing Dynasty’s history and cultural information sharing, all of which are closely related to the inheritance and innovation for the Chinese culture. The central government also attaches importance to the export of cultural products and foreign cultural exchange. It is safe to say that we now have the legal guarantees and material grounds for the inheritance and innovation course. We hope that Hong Kong and Macau on one hand could make the best of their advantages in the cultural transmission, management and research to cooperate with the mainland; on the other hand, they could start their own cultural projects to keep pace with the mainland, thus jointly making achievements in the Chinese culture’s inheritance and innovation. Fourthly, we should develop cultural industries oriented to the traditional Chinese culture. As the cultural industry relies on its content to some degree, the Chinese cultural industry depends upon inheritance and innovation to obtain its ethnic features and the typical Chinese character. Recently China’s State Council has issued the Revitalization Plan on Cultural Industries, which is the government’s eleventh major plan after those on textile and light industries. The traditional Chinese culture will play a vital role in pushing forward the nine cultural industries including cultural and creative industries, film and entertainment industries, cultural expositions, digital contents and animation and comics. Over the past few years, the governments of Hong Kong and Macau have introduced a series of policies encouraging and supporting their cultural industries, which have grown rapidly and have become supporting pillars for these regions’ economic development. Moreover, Hong Kong and Macau are enjoying a leading position in their cultural industries due to the advanced concepts, scientific strategies, reasonable arrangements and sound systems. While China’s mainland is a late starter, it has grown fast in its own cultural industries with great potential because of its rich cultural resources and broad cultural market. We hope that visionary people from Hong Kong and Macau could all join us to participate in the revitalization cause for cultural industries with a focus on the traditional Chinese culture.

Fifthly, we should give full play to the resource advantages of the mainland and the window role of Hong Kong and Macau. Located in the southern coastal areas, Hong Kong and Macau have the opportunity to obtain the first-hand information from the outside and make full use of the plentiful cultural resources of the mainland. By learning from the experience of those two regions, the mainland can make use of the two regions’ window role to keep pace with the international level and to join the global trend of cultural development by absorbing all the advanced cultural fruits of the world. China’s Ministry of Culture will actively encourage the mainland provinces, municipalities directly under the central government and autonomous regions to develop projects oriented in the Chinese culture’s inheritance and innovation with Hong Kong and Macau and give its full support in the designing and implementing of those projects, thus helping the mainland and Hong Kong and Macau achieve cultural success as a win-win result of complementarity and cooperation.

To accomplish the cause of inheritance and innovation for the Chinese culture cannot be realized at one stroke but needs everlasting efforts, time accumulation, emotional input and painstaking dedication. Hence, we should reach such a consensus, join our hands and stand closer to jointly shoulder the responsibilities for the mission of the inheritance and innovation for the Chinese culture.

(Translated by Xiong Hui)