Culture of the People's Republic of China

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The culture of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is a rich and varied blend of traditional Chinese culture with communist and other international modern and post-modern influences. During

the Cultural Revolution, an enormous number of cultural treasures of inestimable value were seriously damaged or destroyed, and the practice of many arts and crafts was prohibited. Since the early 1980s, however, official repudiation of those policies has been complemented by vigorous efforts to renew China's distinct cultural traditions. China's culture thus remains highly complex, encompassing ancient traditions and modern experiments, in what sometimes appears to be a rather dynamic but tenuous mix.

The culture of the People's Republic was in development long before its foundation in 1949 and is mainly a combination of traditional Chinese culture and communism. Much of the diversity of China's culture seems to come from the diversity of the Han Chinese who make up China, and the national minorities who bring individual cultural elements from their cultures, and contribute to a continuing development of Chinese culture that follows cultural changes nationwide and internationally. The culture is also very much based on the history of China, which developed mainly in isolation over the hundreds of years in which it has adapted and assimilated. The ideology of the Communist and Maoist movement beginning in the twentieth century is certainly crucial to understanding modern Chinese culture.

Today, China still has many close cultural links with other parts of the world, especially within East Asia, Southeast Asia, and overseas Chinese communities. Its cultural elements have spread across the globe due to Ancient China's influence, as well as the country's modernizing popular culture and rise as a global power, becoming one of the most prominent cultural forces in the world, and the predominant culture in Asia.^[1]