Hong Kong Bauhinia Magazine：
Public cultural services make up an important part of people's expectations for a better life. Since the 20th CPC National Congress, what work has been done by the MCT to develop modern public cultural services? Thank you.
Chen Binbin:
Thank you for your question. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress emphasized that we will improve the modern system of public cultural services and launch new public-benefit cultural programs. This year, the MCT has fully implemented the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress, followed a people-centered approach, taken pursuing high-quality development as our overarching task, and made efforts to provide higher quality, more efficient, fairer, and more sustainable public cultural services. Our work mainly includes the following three aspects.
Firstly, we have continued to promote the integrated development of urban and rural public cultural services. To narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, we have given priority to providing standardized and equal access to basic public cultural services, implemented national standards for basic public services, and continued to advance a headquarters-branch system for county-level cultural centers and libraries. There are now more than 100,000 branches and service centers at the community level. As you can see, in addition to traditional public cultural facilities, new types of public cultural spaces have also arisen, such as the "city study rooms" in Zhejiang and the "reading bars" in Guangdong. These new public cultural spaces are aesthetically pleasing and well-designed, and they feature many cultural elements as well as flexible operations. At present, the number of new public cultural spaces has surpassed 33,500, and these spaces have become the cultural living room for the people. This year, we launched a publicity week for public library and cultural center services, enabling greater public knowledge of and access to traditional cultural facilities and cultural organizations. We have, together with the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee and the National Development and Reform Commission, released 51 cases of high-quality public cultural services development at the community level.
Second, we have carried out a wide range of cultural activities to benefit the public. This year, in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, we launched the "Songs of the Earth Rural Cultural Events Year." We organized 12 main events and over 80 demonstration activities nationwide. For example, the "Village Gala" used to be held during the Spring Festival, now it is held throughout the year, becoming the "Village Gala in Four Seasons" during the slack season of agricultural production. Another example is square dancing, the most popular cultural activity among Chinese people. According to statistics, more than 120 million people have participated. This year, we organized the National Public Square Dance Competition and held six regional shows based on performances from various locations. We also hosted the Square Dance Night event in Guiyang, Guizhou province. This led to more than 24,000 square dance events being held across the country, with over 110 million people participating both online and offline. Additionally, we launched the "Deep Love for the Earth" national tour of outstanding mass art performances and the Beijing showcase event, as well as the "Hometowns of Chinese Folk Art" exchange and exhibition activities. Nowadays, ordinary people play leading roles in mass cultural events. According to our statistics, the number of registered mass art teams has surpassed 460,000, and this number continues to grow.
Third, we have innovated the system and mechanisms for public cultural services. Public cultural services are no longer solely led or provided by the government. We actively promote an open and shared framework, supporting the extensive participation of social forces in public cultural services through government procurement and the establishment of supply-demand matching platforms. In collaboration with the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, we have innovatively launched the "Spring Rain Project" – cultural and tourism volunteers' trip to the border areas. We introduced 364 volunteer service projects, enabling a large number of high-quality cultural and tourism resources to flow to border areas and areas with large ethnic minority populations through voluntary and public welfare activities. We have implemented the national cultural digitization strategy, coordinating the development of the national smart library system and the construction of the public cultural cloud. This promotes the integrated development of excellent traditional Chinese culture and public cultural services. Furthermore, we have innovatively implemented the plan for the preservation of ancient books, issued guidelines for the classification of ancient books, formulated talent training programs for ancient books preservation, and strengthened the revitalization and utilization of ancient books.
Next, we will continue to improve the top-level institutional design for public cultural services. We will focus on constructing public cultural service platforms and promoting the extensive development of mass cultural activities. These efforts will lay a solid foundation for the common prosperity of people's intellectual and cultural lives. Thank you.
