The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Thursday added traditional Li textile techniques, the Qiang New Year festival and traditional Chinese wooden arch bridges to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The full names of the three items are "traditional Li textile techniques: spinning, dyeing, weaving and embroidering," "Qiang New Year festival," and "traditional design and practices for building Chinese wooden arch bridges." All three were previously included in 2009 on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.
With a history of over 3,000 years, traditional textile of the Li ethnic group epitomizes the country's earliest textile practices and so is seen as a "living fossil" in Chinese textile history.
Traditional Li textile techniques involve four steps: spinning, dyeing, weaving and embroidering. Li women are particularly adept at these techniques, turning cotton, hemp and other fibers into clothing items, including skirts and kerchiefs, as well as other daily necessities. The textiles play a vital role in the ethnic group's social and cultural occasions, especially in weddings. It's a tradition for Li women to design their own traditional wedding dresses.
The Qiang New Year Festival is the grandest and most important traditional festival for the Qiang ethnic group, usually falling on the first day of the tenth month of the traditional Chinese calendar.
Celebrating the harvest, sending blessings and praying for peace are the central themes of Qiang New Year, and the simple yet primitive ceremonial rituals create a uniquely rich cultural atmosphere that reflects the distinctive characteristics of Qiang culture.
Wooden arch bridges are a prominent feature in China's eastern coastal provinces, particularly Fujian and Zhejiang. These traditional bridges, featuring a blend of time-honored designs, traditional tools, and carpentry methods, use key techniques such as "beam-weaving" and mortise-tenon joint structure.
With the addition of these three items, China now has 44 cultural elements or practices recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity.
UNESCO inscribes 3 new Chinese cultural elements, practices on intangible cultural heritage list
UNESCO inscribes 3 new Chinese cultural elements, practices on intangible cultural heritage list
China's development has never been a "threat" to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in Beijing on Friday.
Some Western media and think tanks are peddling so-called "China Shock 2.0," saying that "China is achieving fast development in high-tech sectors such as renewable energy and AI and relies on foreign markets to absorb its overcapacity, thus reducing the market share of developed countries and sending more serious shock waves to the global economy compared with the era of traditional manufacture industry," while there are foreign commentators saying that the "China Shock 2.0" argument ignores the genuine innovation occurring within the Chinese industrial ecosystem and that Chinese export is the exact booster of the global economy that is needed in the turbulent period and more indispensable than ever.
Commenting on that, Lin said: "From the world's factory to the world's market and innovation powerhouse, China's development is achieved through strong performance driven by innovation and brings tangible cooperation opportunities and space to the world. High-quality Chinese products represented by the 'old three' of textiles, furniture and home appliances have stabilized the global industrial and supply chain, lowered the living cost of global consumers and eased the inflationary pressure worldwide. China's green production capacity represented by the 'new three' of electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels has bridged the gap between supply and demand in global green development and bolstered the global energy transition and low-carbon development. Moreover, China's high-tech products represented by the 'new new three' of robots, AI and innovative drugs have broken high-tech barriers and monopoly and enabled people in more countries to access affordable new technologies," said the spokesman.
"Openness and cooperation bring about progress and win-win result. China's development has never been a 'threat' to anyone but the source of growth advancing common development of all countries. What really creates 'shocks' to the world has never been the innovation of Chinese companies and efficiency of Chinese industrial capacity, but protectionist moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing industrial and supply chains. China will stay committed to high-standard opening up, defend the multilateral trading system and provide more certainty and new impetus to the world economy with its own steady development," said Lin.
China's development never a threat: FM spokesman
