The Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees citizens' freedom of speech and information. With the economic development that started in the 1980s
The Chinese publishing industry has continued to grow. In 2004 China published 25.77 billion copies of national-level and provincial-level newspapers, 2.69 billion magazines, and 6.44 billion books.
There are 1,517 museums now in China. Local non-governmental museums included, the number of museums nationwide has reached some 2,000. With a collection of over 20 million items, these museums hold more than 8,000 exhibitions every year.
At the end of 2004, China had 2,710 public libraries with a collection of over 400 million copies. Of the university or college libraries, the collections of Peking University and Wuhan University libraries lead the nation.
China has nearly 400,000 known unmovable cultural relics above- and underground. Since 1996, the State Council has listed 770 key historical and cultural sites under state protection, more than the total number of the past 40-odd years.
In August 2004, the 28th Session of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee (WHC) was held in the famous historical and cultural city of Suzhou. The convention decided to add to the World Heritage List the capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kin
The Book of Songs, China's first anthology of poems and earliest literary achievement, was compiled in the 6th century B.C. Literature that followed in the long succession of dynasties includes pre-Qin prose in a simple style
China boasts a wide variety of arts and crafts renowned for excellent workmanship. Under the protection of the Chinese government, many have been handed down to this very day.
Chinese traditional opera, Greek tragedy and comedy, and Indian Sanskrit opera are considered as the world's three ancient operas. China boasts more than 300 kinds of traditional opera, mainly using singing and dancing to express the plot.
Cinema Realistic films are the mainstream of Chinese cinema. In the new wave of film-making that rose up in the mid-1980s, realistic works reached a high level of creativity in their depiction of life
Cultural Exchange In recent years, China has actively conducted cultural exchanges with other countries. So far, China has reached governmental cultural agreements with 143 countries and signed 700 plans on annual cultural exchange.