Full Text: Progress in China's Human Rights in 2012 (13)

New cultural products have been created to meet the citizens' cultural needs. To quicken the development of the culture industry and create more popular cultural products the people like, the CPC Central Committee adopted the Decision on Major Issues Pertaining to Deepening the Reform of the Cultural System and Pressing Ahead for the Great Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture. The Chinese government also released the Outline of the National Cultural Reform and Development Program during the 12th Five-Year Plan Period, Plan to Reinvigorate the Culture Industry, and other policies and measures related to cultural development, as part of the efforts to vigorously promote cultural progress and innovation. Currently, a framework of the culture industry has been basically developed, covering 11 culture industries such as entertainment, animation, games and digital culture. In 2011 the added value of China's culture and related industries grew 21.96 percent over the previous year to reach 1.3479 trillion yuan, accounting for 2.85 percent of the country's GDP during the same period. In 2012 China produced a total of 47.6 billion copies of newspapers, 3.4 billion copies of periodicals and 8.1 billion copies of books, and the total volume of electronic publications and the total output value of the printing industry ranked second and third in the world, respectively. In 2012 the country made 745 feature films and 148 other films, including popular science films, documentaries, animated cartoons and special-purpose films. By 2011 a total of 1,540,400 arts performances had been presented by various performance troupes. The value of China's entertainment market reached 56.618 billion yuan, and the total transactions on the art market were worth 195.9 billion yuan. There were 146,000 Internet cafes across the country and 452 companies doing Internet music business, and the market for online games had generated 46.85 billion yuan in revenue. Since the state launched the project to promote quality stage art works in 2002, the country has seen the staging of 100 leading plays and operas and over 200 other quality plays and operas in the theater. The national project for the creation of fine art works on major historical themes has brought about 104 pieces of top-notch artwork. Fine national art traditions have been preserved and promoted with the state making efforts to preserve, protect and support the art of Kunqu Opera, key national troupes of Peking Opera and Chinese music. The government has held the China Art Festival and Excellent Repertoire Awards, as well as staged prize-winning performances by private art troupes and quality modern drama plays. The state continues with the activities of "taking cultural services to the countryside" and "introducing classic art to campuses."

Public cultural services have been made more equitable. The state has provided extensive public cultural services to special groups, and made greater efforts to guarantee the cultural rights of migrant workers, senior citizens, minors, low-income groups, and disabled persons. The state has implemented the Promotion Program for Children's Songs, and held China Children's Choir Festival and China Choir Festival for the Elderly, among other activities. In May 2010 the National Library of China formally opened its National Children's Library (National Children's Digital Library) to the public. In 2012 China Digital Library for Visually Impaired and China Digital Library for People with Disabilities provided barrier-free books, lectures, music and other cultural services to over a million disabled persons. The state has implemented the program to build public electronic reading rooms, and has completed the building of 28,612 such reading rooms in rural townships and urban communities to provide services to minors, senior citizens, migrant workers and other groups. In 2011 state departments concerned jointly issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening Cultural Services for Migrant Workers, which set the guidelines for migrant workers' cultural services relying mainly on the public cultural service system, and boosted the forming of a mechanism where the government assumes the leading role, enterprises contribute by joint development, and the whole society takes part. From 2010 the Ministry of Culture has been actively promoting trips by volunteers to bring cultural services to border areas. Over the past three years, more than 20 provinces (municipalities) and public institutions in China's more developed areas have organized 50 volunteers' groups comprising over 2,000 cultural volunteers to stage 450 art performances in 12 border provinces and autonomous regions inhabited by ethnic minorities in compact communities and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, provide more than 2,000 hours of professional training and hold a total of 600 days of cultural exhibitions, benefiting several hundred thousand people. Efforts have also been made to promote the adding of subtitles and sign language to TV programs and provide barrier-free live broadcasting service online with words and videos of major events, benefiting 70,000 people with hearing impairment. In 2012 the Ministry of Culture and the Office of Cultural and Ethical Promotion of the CPC Central Committee jointly released the Opinions on Carrying out Extensive Community-based Voluntary Cultural Services, which proposed to extensively carry out voluntary cultural services on the basis of public cultural facilities, cultural projects benefiting the people, major festivals and memorial days, and pair-up assistance between more developed areas and border areas.

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