China and central Asian countries will jointly apply for world
cultural heritage status for historical sites along the ancient
Silk Road in the next three to five years, a senior Chinese
cultural official said Thursday.
"An action plan will be made for the joint application," said
Tong Mingkang, deputy director of the State Cultural Heritage
Administration, at an ongoing multinational application convention
held in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Under the plan, countries along the ancient Silk Road will take
measures to protect cultural relics, improve the environment at the
sites, and carry out a promotion campaign, said Tong.
The 2,000-year-old Silk Road was mainly a trade route linking
Asia and Europe. It began from the city of Xi'an, capital of
northwest China's Shaanxi Province, and ended in Europe via south
and central Asia countries. It was 7,000 kilometers long, more than
half of which is in China.
Along this road, gunpowder, papermaking and printing
technologies, three of the four great inventions in ancient China,
were sent to the West, while western mathematics and medicine came
to China.
In 1987, the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, also known as the Caves of
1,000 Buddhas in northwest China's Gansu Province, was listed as a
world heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
But in 1994, China had to withdraw its application for the world
heritage site for the ancient Jiaohe City, a cultural relics site
along the Silk Road in Xinjiang, because of inadequate
preparations.
In the 1990s, countries along the ancient Silk Road began to
seek a multinational world heritage application for historical
sites along the route, according to Tong.
Also in the early 1990s, the UNESCO carried out three
large-scale inspections on historical sites along the ancient Silk
Road.
In 2003 and 2004, the UNESCO organized two teams of experts to
conduct inspections the cultural relics sites on Silk Road in
China.
"Now, it is a good time for a multinational application, and
China, as a source country of the ancient Silk Road, is willing to
cooperate with the UNESCO and other countries to do this work,"
said Tong.
Six historical sites in five central Asian countries along the
ancient Silk Road have been listed separately as world heritage
sites, each with its own specialties, according to Takashi Ito, a
project worker with the UNESCO World Heritage Center's Asia-Pacific
Region Program.
But a multinational application will be a better choice if we
want to present the whole historical culture of the ancient Silk
Road, he said.
Jing Feng, also with UNESCO World Heritage Center's Asia-Pacific
Region Program, said the World Heritage Committee encourages
multinational applications of world heritage sites that are
significant to all people.
Before an official multinational application, we will try to
preserve well cultural relics along the ancient Silk Road, said
Karl Baipakov, director of the Institute of Archaeology under the
Ministry of Education and Science of Kyrgyzstan. Tuygun Babaev, a
cultural relics protection official from Uzbekistan, said his
country will draw up a detailed plan in order to participate in the
multinational application.
China began this year a comprehensive protection plan for more
than 20 key historical sites along sections of the Silk Road in
Xinjiang. Investment for these projects is estimated at 420 million
yuan (US$52 million).
Reinforcement of a 3,000-year-old city on the ancient Silk Road
in Turpan City of Xinjiang started on Wednesday, marking the
beginning of the comprehensive project.
The convention, held in Turpan from Wednesday to Saturday, has
attracted more than 50 experts and heritage officials from the
UNESCO and China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan
which are expected to make the joint application.
(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2006)
