Intangible Cultural Heritage Political measures of Asian Nations

The main purpose of this paper is to examine political changes on Intangible Cultural Heritage managing system after the government of the Republic of Korea and UNESCO introduced ‘Living Human Treasure System’ as intangible cultural heritage policy.For this, I categorized safeguarding systems for Intangible Cultural Heritage into two groups according to operational body: by a government; by non-governmental organizations. Besides, latter will be divided into another three categories: Multiracial nations, Socialist states, and Newly-emerging nations. Japanese government has strongly continued to promote safeguarding projects for modern living heritage which exclude from the Intangible cultural heritage boundary.Ethnic tradition and folk art are recognized as excellent resource for tourism development in Taiwan. It can be found on the Cultural Heritage Protection Law that express each school education system should include their Intangible cultural heritage program during the semester.Many multiracial nations in East Asia region include Indonesia, Thailand, India, Philippines, etc. have run the protection system to stop disappearing the minority race’s languages and fading out their identity. Specially, mass media has brought language standardization. It is worth note that government makes sure than broadcast company should produce TV programs that include ethnic tales and formal school also need to teach tradition education for safeguarding languages and ethnic tales of the minority race.In most socialist states, cultural heritage policy which focused on Tangible heritage is normally based on materialism. It has been only few years since UNESCO introduced the system that they imply intangible cultural heritage system to their policy. Thus, China and Vietnam ratified Convention of the safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. These two countries are actively promoting the ICH safeguarding system.In addition to newly-emerging nations’ policy such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan also promote their heritage in order to rebuild their national identity and economic development. These countries were member of Russia Federation once, so they still have strong influence of socialism. Craftsmen were working class before independence and now government supports the craftsmen to transmit their culture and art. The artifacts done by craftsmen are displayed in museums. The government expects that success of their art work will lead them to economic development in tourism industry.