Visitors attend the "Museum is Reviving" event at the Xi'an Tang Hanguang Gate Museum in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Nov. 28, 2020. The two-day event opened here on Saturday. (Xinhua/Tao Ming)

The General Assembly of the Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia (ACHA), the first mechanism for international cooperation for the conservation of cultural heritage across Asia, is scheduled to be held in Xi'an, capital city of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, on Monday and Tuesday. 

This is the first large-scale high-level offline international conference held on site since the establishment of the alliance in 2021, a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was still hitting the country hard. 

Representatives from 21 Asian countries, UNESCO, international cultural heritage protection organizations and 15 cultural heritage officials will attend the cultural feast. The event will discuss joint archaeology, cultural heritage protection and restoration projects, which echo the Asian Initiative for Cultural Heritage Conservation that was proposed in 2019, according to a press release issued by China's National Cultural Heritage Administration on Thursday.

Lou Wenli, director-general of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration, told the Global Times on Thursday that the authority has collaborated with multiple Asian countries including Myanmar and Vietnam on joint cultural relic exhibitions, archaeology projects, and protection of cultural relics using high technology. 

For example, Chinese archaeologists from the Shaanxi authority went to a palace in Nepal for a joint archaeology project, and cooperated with Singapore on the restoration of cultural relics. 

He said that Shaanxi Province is willing to act as a key bridge to facilitate exchanges and cooperation between Asian countries in cultural heritage and make greater contribution to promoting exchanges, mutual learning and intensive cooperation across Asia in the field of cultural heritage. 

The expected outcomes of the General Assembly will include the official establishment of ACHA, the official launch of the Asian Fund for Cultural Heritage Conservation, the inauguration of the Silk Road Collaborative Research Center for Archaeology, and the publication of the Xi'an Declaration of the Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia.

In 2021, China and nine Asian countries including Armenia, Cambodia, Iran, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen jointly initiated the alliance for cultural heritage conservation, aiming to promote cultural heritage conservation and exchange among Asian countries.