ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses different notions of the “future” and their influence on Chinese intangible cultural heritage (ICH) management and development through a series of laws and regulations. It traces the changes in understanding ICH from something to be inherited largely without change and thus remain stable in the future to something to be alive and continuously re-adapted to a society changing over time. Such a living heritage is, however, problematic to the extent that it can be misappropriated, e.g. in the form of commodification. The chapter provides with an outlook on the significance of ICH for a younger generation of Chinese people that arguably are the future. Productive protection treats ICH as a valuable cultural resource, using an economic ecosystem to achieve a positive interaction between ICH’s protection in an economic society and its balanced development. This opinion realises that saving ICH is connected to issues in modern-day China and the main risks for future China.
