Strengthening cultural confidence and continuing historical context, we must protect, inherit, and promote the Yangtze River culture well

We must protect, inherit, and promote the Yangtze River culture well, continue the historical context, and strengthen cultural confidence.

This passage comes from the speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the symposium on comprehensively promoting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt on November 14, 2020.

The Yangtze River originates from the Qinghai Tibet Plateau, flows through the Jianghan Plain and the water towns of Jiangnan, crosses the east and west, stretches for thousands of miles, and has been surging on the land of China for millions of years. Generations of Chinese people living on both sides of the Yangtze River have formed unique and integrated river basin cultures through hard work and commercial exchanges, which have been passed down to this day and have a profound impact. For example, traditional customs such as making glutinous rice cakes during the Chinese New Year, dragon boat races during the Dragon Boat Festival, lighting lanterns and admiring the moon during the Mid Autumn Festival, as well as traditional crafts such as tea making, wine making, embroidery, and porcelain making, are still an important part of the daily life of residents along the Yangtze River today. From the Three Gorges and Sanxingdui to the Yellow Crane Tower and Yueyang Tower, and then to the Tengwang Pavilion and Suzhou Gardens, the famous scenic spots and historical sites along the Yangtze River are scattered everywhere, making it a great place for us to learn about history and enrich our lives. At the same time, the poems and songs about the Yangtze River created by literati and ink figures from various historical periods, such as Li Bai's "Early Departure from the White Emperor City", Zhang Ruoxu's "Spring River Flower Moonlit Night", Su Shi's "Nian Nujiao · Red Cliff Nostalgia" and other famous works that have been passed down for thousands of years, still nourish our spiritual world

At present, there are 1872 national key cultural relics protection units, 7320 provincial-level cultural relics protection units, 52 national historical and cultural cities, 852 national intangible cultural heritage representative projects, and more than 20 world heritage sites in provinces and cities along the Yangtze River. They carry the collective memory, humanistic spirit, values, moral norms, etc. of the people in the Yangtze River Basin and the Chinese nation, together forming the vast and profound Yangtze River culture. They are representative symbols of the Chinese nation and symbolic symbols of Chinese civilization, and also an important source of cultivating socialist core values.

Protecting, inheriting, and promoting the Yangtze River culture is of great significance for us to continue our historical context and strengthen our cultural confidence today. At the beginning of last year, the construction of the Yangtze River National Cultural Park was officially launched, and the 13 provinces and cities involved in the project took this opportunity to actively take multiple measures to increase the protection, inheritance, and development of Yangtze River culture. From dispatching multiple archaeological investigation teams to carry out cultural relic resource surveys, to increasing manpower and financial resources to organize and restore ancient books and other cultural relics, from opening archaeological museums to the public for free, to hosting various lively and interesting cultural relics exhibitions, from creating and launching a series of literary and artistic works related to the Yangtze River culture, to creating a Yangtze River Cultural Festival with regional characteristics, various regions have made great efforts to protect and inherit the Yangtze River culture, while also leveraging the unique cultural resource advantages of the local area to cultivate and develop new cultural tourism projects, making the Yangtze River cultural resources a new driving force and advantage for high-quality development in the local area.

Recently, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Cutural Heritage Administration and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the Yangtze River Cultural Protection, Inheritance and Promotion Plan, which proposed multiple tasks such as digging and promoting the cultural connotation of the Yangtze River, comprehensively promoting the systematic protection of Yangtze River cultural relics and cultural heritage, launching outstanding literary and artistic works on the subject of the Yangtze River, improving the level of public cultural services in the Yangtze River basin, and promoting the upgrading of the cultural industry and tourism in the Yangtze River basin. All relevant departments in various regions should strengthen organization and coordination, improve implementation mechanisms, gradually promote the landing and rooting of key tasks and engineering projects, promote the better benefits of the Yangtze River culture to the people, and make the Yangtze River culture an important support for the construction of a socialist cultural power and the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Interpretation of this issue: Chen Ruihai, commentator of CCTV