China to improve identification, management of intangible cultural heritage inheritors

BEIJING - China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism released a regulation on Dec 10 on improving the identification and management of representative inheritors of national-level intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

The regulation details the criteria for identifying representative inheritors, including their skills, representativeness, social influence and moral standing.

The identification will normally be held once every five years, and will feature procedures such as the re-examination of their materials and public evaluation, according to the regulation.

It also outlines situations under which the qualifications of representative inheritors should be canceled, as well as how to handle the passing of representative inheritors to highlight humanistic care.

The ministry has identified 3,068 national-level ICH representative inheritors in five batches so far, who enjoy an average subsidy of 20,000 yuan ($2,841) per year from the country.