Home > White Paper > FY2006 White Paper on Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology > Column > Column2

Communicating culture and the arts from Japan
(Ikuo Hirayama, Chairman, Foundation for Cultural Heritage and Art Research)

Culture is exchanged across peoples, religions, and national boundaries, and outstanding aspects of culture serve as common assets of humankind, going beyond time and space to impress us deeply. In Japan as well, the Japanese culture that exists today has been built up over a period of a millennium and several centuries. Going forward, we need to make sustained efforts to create and pass on outstanding aspects of culture and to move forward with building a dignified nation that we can boast about to the rest of the world.

Over the past several years, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has been proactively promoting cultural exchange in Japan and abroad, and has been carrying out overseas exhibitions, people-to-people exchanges of experts in culture and the arts, and so forth. Support for the preservation of overseas cultural properties has been carried out centering on the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Universities and research institutes have conducted survey research from their respective standpoints, but the preservation and restoration of cultural property needs to be carried out bringing together people from various fields, such as experts in history, archeology, natural science, art, and restoration.

In June 2006, administrative agencies such as the Agency for Cultural Affairs and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs utilized their extensive experience and cooperated with universities, research institutes, and so forth to establish the Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage. A system was created for gathering information and comprehensively restoring cultural heritage in regions such as West Asia and Southeast Asia.

The Law Concerning the Promotion of International Cooperation with Regard to the Protection of Cultural Heritage Located Abroad, which supports the principle of international contributions through culture, was enacted at the 164th Ordinary Session of the Diet as a result of the efforts of Diet members with support from all parties. This law is the first law with objectives such as Japan's contributing to the development of culture in the world through the protection of cultural heritage.

Going forward, based on the establishment of this law, relevant institutions will work together to promote international cooperation and exchange through culture. The law is expected to lead to further communicating the culture of Japan.