Photo: From official website of China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate

China’s top procuratorate and the cultural heritage protection and management authority announced some of the things they’ve achieved in combating criminal activities related to cultural relics, vowing to strengthen cooperation to improve policies and mechanism.

China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) held a joint press conference on Monday and introduced their work in combating crimes related to cultural relics with joint efforts of the procuratorial organs and cultural relics administrative departments in recent years. 

According to Chen Peijun, director of the NCHA’s supervision and inspection department, China has 57 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, over 760,000 immovable cultural relics, including 5,058 national key cultural relics protection units. There are 6,565 registered museums and 108 million state-owned movable cultural relics across the country. 

According to Chen, the legal construction is an important guarantee for the security of cultural relics. At present, the regulations and mechanism for cultural relics have been continuously improving, with over 200 local regulations on cultural heritage protection implemented nationwide. 

Meanwhile, with the close collaboration of various relevant department who issue joint policies, deploy special campaigns, carry out themed activities, and the coordination mechanism between different department on safeguarding cultural relic security and the repatriation of lost cultural relics, the mechanisms for the protection, management, and governance on cultural relics have been improved. 

According to China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate, procuratorial organs across the country handled 11,402 lawsuits of public interest in terms of cultural relics and cultural heritage protection from January in 2022 and September in 2023. 

According to Luo Qingdong, deputy director of the First Procuratorate of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the procuratorial organs have ensured precise law enforcement by intervening in the key cases in advance, conducting case discussions, providing suggestions on the defines of the case characteristics, the applicable laws and evidence fixation. 

Besides, the procuratorate authority has strengthened communication with the disciplinary inspection and supervision authority, promptly transferring duty-related crimes to ensure thorough and comprehensive investigation. 

According to the top procuratorate, the procuratorial organs nationwide have approved the arrest of 3,192 individuals involved in 1,451 criminal cases related to the obstruction of cultural relic management. Additionally, 5,020 individuals involved in 1,785 cases have been prosecuted, effectively combating and deterring cultural relic crimes.  

The procuratorial organs at different levels also have strengthened their cooperation with the public security departments, courts, cultural relic management departments and customs to adapt to the characteristics of cultural relics crimes under the new situation, and better combat and prevent cultural relics crimes. 

To cope with the current characteristics of cultural relic crimes which have become more organized, professional and intelligent, with an increase in looting and theft and activities like trafficking and selling stolen items, as well as the spread of criminal activities on the internet, a joint mechanism for combating and preventing cultural relic crimes has been improved by the National Cultural Heritage Administration and multiple other departments to include the prevention of cultural relics crimes into daily tasks, according to Chen. 

In terms of the strict prevention and control of cultural relic crimes, the central government allocates 1.2 billion yuan ($164 million) every year and construct nearly 400 protective projects for cultural relics at the key cultural relic protection units nationwide. These projects include installing intrusion alarms, video surveillance, electronic patrols, and other security prevention systems and facilities at high-risk sites such as ancient cultural heritage sites, imperial tombs, ancient tombs, and stone caves and carvings, with the capability for cultural relic security prevention and early warning being continuously enhanced. 

During the Monday press conference, the top procuratorate and the cultural heritage protection and management authority also disclosed a series of typical criminal cases related to cultural relics, including the cases of excavating ancient tombs and concealing the proceeds of the crimes as well as the cases of reselling cultural relics, with some of the transaction prices of the cultural relics involved amounting to nearly 10 million yuan. 

Global Times