Chinas cultural heritage in a historical perspective

The aim of the paper is to show the process of changing the Chinese approach to its own cultural heritage, the appreciation of its value both in itself and as a component of the image of the state, as well as an element of domestic and international politics. In contemporary China, its cultural heritage is a phenomenon of both domestic and international significance. In the internal dimension it is used for strengthening the national identity and patriotic attitudes, while on the international arena it has become a useful tool, applied in moral or symbolic contexts. It may be observed in the process of recovering some Chinese antiques from abroad at the beginning of the 21st century. The Chinese heritage policy has been, to some extent, forged by the West. The discussion on own cultural heritage started to emerge in China as a result of Western attitude to the significance of historical objects, as well as after numerous cases of looting Chinese cultural, religious and archaeological sites by foreigners in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Communist Revolution classified cultural heritage sites as remnants of feudalism, and therefore many of them were either neglected or destroyed, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Nowadays, however, the Communist Party of China has assumed the role of a main defender of the Chinese heritage, trying to recover Chinese historical artefacts from abroad, and protect historical monuments in the country.