Chen Wenjun:

Thank you, Mr. Sun Yeli. The floor is now open for questions. Please identify the media outlet you represent before raising questions.

CCTV:

After completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, people's living standards and intellectual and cultural lives have been greatly improved. What work has been done in promoting the construction of public cultural services and meeting the people's ever-growing intellectual and cultural needs? Thank you.

Sun Yeli:

Thanks for your question. This question involves the Publicity Department, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the National Radio and Television Administration, and the like. I will brief you on some information first, and my colleagues from other departments will deliver supplements.

Over the years, continuous efforts have been made to standardize and equalize public cultural services, including improving the coverage of public cultural service facilities in both urban and rural areas to provide the people with more diversified, more convenient, and more targeted cultural products and services. We have mainly done the following work:

First, we have launched cultural projects to benefit the public. The outlines of the 13th Five-Year Plan and 14th Five-Year Plan have made clear arrangements to construct public cultural services. We have focused on promoting a series of projects such as national cultural information resources sharing, radio and television services to every household in rural areas, building libraries for farmers, and projecting free films in rural areas. All these projects aim to make the public cultural services system more robust. By the end of 2021, there were 2,542 radio and television broadcasting agencies, 3,215 public libraries, 3,316 cultural centers, 6,183 museums, and more than 40,000 townships (sub-district) cultural stations, and about 570,000 village-level cultural service centers, and over 580,000 farmers' libraries across China. So far, all public libraries, cultural centers, art galleries, cultural stations, and most museums have been opened to the public for free.

Second, we have improved the provision of cultural products and services. We have built a national public cultural cloud, smart radio and television systems, libraries, museums, and digital farmers' libraries. In 2021, the number of licensed readers in public libraries nationwide reached 103 million, and the public cultural service institutes served more than 800 million people. Museums across the country held 36,000 exhibitions and 320,000 educational activities, receiving nearly 800 million visitors, with relevant website page views reaching 4.1 billion. We have also carried out extensive public cultural activities such as "Bringing Culture into Thousands of Families," Heart-to-Heart Art Troupe's performances, "Introducing Opera Art to Campuses," "Taking Operas to the Countryside," and so on. Programs such as "Chinese Poetry Conference" and "Nostalgia in Mind" have been well received by the public.

Third, we have innovated the operating mechanism for public services. We have guided and encouraged private actors to participate in the operation and service providing of public cultural service facilities and formed a new model of diverse social supply. We have also accelerated the construction of the central-branch system of cultural centers and libraries. As of June this year, a total of 2,674 counties, cities, and districts across China have built the central-branch system of cultural centers, and 2,642 counties, cities, and districts have established the central-branch library system. 

I will now give the floor to my colleagues from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the National Radio and Television Administration.

Lu Yingchuan:

Thanks for Mr. Sun Yeli's introduction to public cultural services. I will add a few more points. Over the past 10 years, our policy focus has mainly been on improving the quality of public cultural services based on the initial realization of the equalization of basic public cultural services. In the past, we were discussing "whether there are public cultural services or not," and now we are focusing on "whether the services are good or not." As for the specific policy measures, we have grasped the following aspects:

First, we have strengthened the construction of the legal system in public cultural services. For example, over the past 10 years, we have rolled out several new laws and regulations, such as The Law on Guaranteeing Public Cultural Services, the Law on Public Libraries, and the Regulations on Museums. At the same time, we have formulated and introduced relevant national standards for basic public cultural services and promoted local governments to develop implementation standards and corresponding guidance catalogs to further clarify the coverage of basic public cultural services, all of which have effectively ensured the popularization and promotion of public cultural services.

Second, we have advanced comprehensive and deepening reform to promote further the vitality and the expansion of the coverage of public cultural services through mechanism innovation. For example, as Mr. Sun Yeli mentioned just now, we have implemented the central-branch system of county-level cultural centers and libraries. At present, more than 92% of the counties in China have established a central-branch system of cultural centers and libraries. In the past, there were about 6,300 libraries and cultural centers in such areas. By 2021, the number had reached 95,000, which significantly improved the efficiency of public cultural services and expanded its coverage.

Third, we have actively and extensively carried out public cultural activities. We have always seen public cultural activities as our key task and continued strengthening and improving the construction of public cultural performing troupes. Currently, there are more than 450,000 public cultural performing troupes across China, growing by 50% compared to 2012. We will continue to organize and launch performances that are widely welcomed by the people, such as singing and square dancing of the general public, as well as the "village gala" in the countryside, to create an artistic stage exclusive to the general public. During the 2022 Spring Festival, about 118 million online and offline participants attended the Spring Festival Gala demonstration activities nationwide. It should be said that these cultural activities have become prevalent events among the Chinese people.

Fourth, we promoted digital public cultural projects to further improve cultural services. In the past 10 years, with the support of the central budget, we created and provided a total of 3,844 terabytes of digital resources including e-books and videos, which equals the total amount of digital resources from 10 provincial-level libraries. This greatly enhanced the convenience and accessibility of the services. 

That's all I have to add, thank you.

Meng Dong:

I have some additional information to provide. Over the past 10 years, public broadcasting and television services have also achieved historic accomplishments, which can be summarized in three aspects:

First, we realized accessibility of radio and TV programs in every village and every household. In these years, we pushed forward with the digital renovation of cable TV networks and radio-transmitting stations and the application of direct broadcasting satellites in remote rural households, focusing on filling the blanks. As of the end of 2021, radio and television programs nationwide had covered 99.48% and 99.66% of China's population, respectively. 

Second, we moved from providing content to providing quality content. We implemented a series of projects to benefit the people, ensuring their rights and interests in enjoying radio and television services. And we are now pushing programs that are aimed at offering convenient and quality radio and television services for all people to enjoy at any time and any place via different end devices and mobile devices. 

Third, we upgraded services from single to comprehensive ones. In 10 years, smart radio and television networks and platforms, and emergency broadcasting systems, have played a positive role in local Party committees and governments improving policy promotion and disaster prevention and reduction. During the pandemic, emergency broadcasting, which is all over rural areas, spread knowledge regarding epidemic prevention across farming fields in various dialects. Broadcasting and television networks helped students continue with their learning when schools suspended classes. Broadcasting and television and the online video sector supported the development of the agriculture industry, agricultural population, and rural areas by enabling live-streaming e-commerce, which makes product sales industrialized, and turns online traffic into sales. 

That's all I have to add, thank you.

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