ABSTRACT
This chapter examines this mechanism from three aspects – the policies and initiatives, the legal framework, and the institutional system – to demonstrate the connection between museums and China’s cultural diplomacy. Displaying the image of China and coordinating with diplomatic agendas while working internationally are important missions for Chinese museums. As early as in 1996, the general principles for China’s international cultural work had already been highlighted by Li Tieying, State Councillor between 1988 and 1998, at a meeting of the Ministry of Culture. Exhibitions of non-cultural-relics are mainly supervised by the Administrative Provision of Foreign-Related Culture-and-Art Performances and Exhibitions of the Ministry of Culture , which is far less stricter than the law. Any exhibition intending to borrow objects from museums located in two or more Chinese provinces had to negotiate with it, and the institution had to take sole responsibility throughout the process on behalf of those Chinese museums providing objects.
