Cultural Ecological Protection Zones and Governing Culture in the PRC

Note: This post is an abbreviated version of a paper Tim Thurston recently gave at the 2023 meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in Boston. Some links embedded here will take you to PRC government webpages. 

In 2018, the government of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (ཡུལ་ཤུལ་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ།, 玉树藏族自治州) announced the establishment of a national level “Tibetan (Yushu) Cultural Ecological Protection Experimental Region”. I was in the area at the time researching efforts to safeguard the Tibetan Gesar epic and was intrigued. A quick search on China’s popular “Baidu” search engine told me that Yushu’s was not China’s first cultural ecological protection zone, and that these had been around since 2007. But few of the people with whom I spoke were certain how (if at all) this designation would affect them. Upon returning from the field, I was also struck by the relative lack of academic literature on these practices: I found no mentions of these “regions” in English-language scholarship, and Chinese language scholarship hardly represented a drop in the vast ocean of Chinese academic writing. And yet, the establishment of this “Zone” in Yushu seemed indicative of a uniquely Chinese and State-led approach to the problems and the difficulties of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, with important implications for the futures of cultural practices across the country.  

The first cultural ecological safeguarding experimental zone was established in June 2007, shortly after the UNESCO convention for the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage came into effect (2006). It was the Minnan Cultural ecological experimental preservation zone, joining offices responsible for tourism, culture, and the environment from three city level administrative units in the coastal Fujian Province in efforts to safeguard the heritage of a local, linguistic and cultural identity. These zones were to engage in zhengti xing baohu 整体性保护 ‘holistic’ or ‘comprehensive’ protection of ICH.  

Over the last 16 years, the number of national level eco-cultural protection regions has grown rapidly, and China has established 23 “National level” Cultural Ecological Protection Zones. These zones cover multiple county-level jurisdictions, and some even cross provincial boundaries in recognition of the fact that many traditions and communities cross contemporary boundaries. In 2018, the PRC government enacted legislation to govern the application for, establishment, management, and oversight of these zones. The law is structured in four sections. The first, articles 1-4, lays out the overarching project. The second (articles 5-16) provides information about applying for and establishing a national-level cultural ecological protection zone. The third (articles 17-35), describes rules governing the construction and management of the zones. The fourth and final section features three appended articles about how this law relates to the zone established prior to this legislation.  

The 2018 law emphasizes two features: Firstly, that the zones bring together local officials from work units responsible for cultural heritage, tourism, and ecological preservation in each part of the zone,  all under the supervision of the “Ministry of Culture and Tourism” (wenhua he lvyou bu 文化和旅游部). Secondly, the provisions of the law focus on officially recognized ICH items. This limits the purview of these zones and overlooks the vitality of the culture more broadly. But what do these zones do? The Covid-19 pandemic and the difficulty of accessing western China has made this particular question a little bit more difficult to answer, but the 2018 establishment of the Tibetan Culture (Yushu) Ecological Protection Zone and news media touting its accomplishments provide some clues.  

The Chinese-language material heralding the establishment of Yushu’s “Tibetan” cultural-ecological protection zone. One 2017 news article, for example, announced that The cultural ecological protection experimental zone in Yushu was created:  

“with Yushu City as the core protection area, and the five counties of Chengduo, Zhiduo, Nangqian, Zaduo, and Qumalai as priority protection areas, covers the protection of tangible and intangible cultural heritage that the Yushu Tibetan people have created and transmitted, the subject of the safeguarding are the representative transmitters and transmitting groups” (Qinghai Daily 2017).  

Press releases and literature found on signs around Jyegu Town, the town at the center of what is now officially known as Yushu City, distinguishes between two types of heritage protection: “salvage preservation” (Ch, qiangjiuxing baohu 抢救性保护) and “productive preservation” (shengchanxing baohu 生产性保护). This phrasing hints at a parallel set of “pathways” for the protection of different traditions: more marketable ones could be earmarked for “productive” preservation and orientation toward a tourist market, while those that seemed endangered and less marketable could be “salvaged.”   

A 2022 news article provides further information about how the government envisions safeguarding ICH in the cultural ecological protection zone. It noted a working guideline of “Safeguarding is primary, salvaging is the priority, rational use, transmit and develop” and also that the work has involved salvage documentation of representative transmitters of ICH items and completed the compiling and publication of ICH popular reading materials.” Here we see that the primary work of salvage preservation is the creation of texts. Productive preservation, meanwhile, focuses on presentation, transmission, and sale. The same article, for example, goes on to tout the government’s achievements in creating spaces for transmitting cultural practices, including:  

7 (传习基地) transmission learning bases, 77 transmission bases （传承基地）(including for horse racing, and dance), and 31 experiential learning spaces (体验馆/区). The reports also mention training 600 new carvers of mani stones, and 800 other craftspeople, as well as improving sales for Tibetan pottery, knives, rugs, mani stones, thangkas, incense, and more.

From this, we can see that the work of productive preservation tends to focus on ‘exhibition, experience, and transmission” and the greatest successes in this area appear to be in festival and craft traditions. Less easily marketed traditions are not mentioned. 

Like ICH more generally, ethnic minority traditions and minority inhabited areas are over-represented among China’s eco-cultural safeguarding zones. Despite comprising less than 10% of China’s overall population, 11 of China’s 23 national-level Cultural Ecological Protection Zones are associated with minority-inhabited areas, including one specifically for the Qiang, and 3 focusing on the Tujia nationality. Four of these regions are associated with Tibetan inhabited areas: Diqing (Dechen), Golok, Rebgong, and Yushu. The outsized representation of Tibetan and other minority communities within these zones, suggests that these zones are an important new technology of cultural governance in contemporary China. Additionally, the 2018 law and the media coverage of Yushu’s zone shows that these zones will shape the future of traditions through what they protect, how they do this, and what they overlook. Though it is still early in the history of these zones, then, it is increasingly clear that any discussion of cultural sustainability in Tibetan regions will require attention to how political infrastructures support and inhibit the vitality of Tibetan cultures.