Being one of the panelists of the Cultural Heritage Conservation Forum titled “Shared Heritage, Shared Future” held on Hilton Petaling Jaya Hotel, Selangor, Malaysia on Sept 5, I would like to make some suggestions for the conservation of culture heritage in the world generally and Asia specifically.

First of all, there are three types of cultural heritage, namely tangible culture (like buildings, monuments, landscapes, archive materials, books, works of art, and artifacts), intangible culture (like folklore, traditions, language, and knowledge), and natural heritage (comprising culturally significant landscapes, and biodiversity).

Moreover, cultural heritage comprises cultures, customs, beliefs, rites, rituals, ceremonies, indigenous knowledge, social customs, crafts, music, political and ideological beliefs that influence culture and behavior, history, practices regarding the natural environment, religious and scientific traditions, etc.

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There are five major cultural heritage values including historic value, spiritual value, aesthetic value, social value and symbolic value.

Cultural heritage is vital because it provides evidence of human life in the past and is the foundation of a nation's identity. Cultural heritage is important because it helps to preserve and promote cultural diversity, and contributes to the identity and automatic sense of unity and belonging of communities. It allows us to better comprehend previous generations and the history of where we come from.

In addition, comprehending our cultural heritage can give us a sense of personal identity.

The objectives of heritage conservation are to benefit present and future generations and to manage alterations, development, redevelopment and construction, as well as demolition in order to retain the heritage value of the area. Furthermore, to promote conservation, restoration, rehabilitation and renovation, and to maintain the character of an area (e.g. layout, features).

It is vital to preserve our cultural heritage because it keeps our integrity as a people. The importance of intangible cultural heritage is not the cultural manifestation itself but rather the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted through it from one generation to the next.

The process of cultural heritage conservation pertains to the actions and measures taken to preserve both tangible and intangible aspects of cultural heritage, like artifacts, performing arts like dance and music, so as to protect their messages and values for future generations.

The importance of cultural heritage conservation is, as the Chinese saying goes, “by reading the history, we know how does a dynasty rise and fall”.

There are four great ancient civilizations in the world; China is the only continuous civilization of 5,000 years that still exists now.

The other three ancient civilizations such as Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), ancient Egypt and Indus Valley (ancient India, about 5,300 years) had all extinct due to the invasions of Persian Empire.

With the recent discovery of archeological sites at Gansu province pertaining to Great Yu Dynasty, the Chinese civilization can be extended by at least 3,000 more years. That is 8,000 years which is on par with the civilization of ancient Egypt (about 8,500 years).

Some of the literatures discovered from the archeological site mentioned what ancient people had said, that means the Chinese civilization can be traced back to more than 10,000 years which is on par with the civilization of Mesopotamia (about 10,000 years)

The above archeological discovery is not only vital for China in particular; it has added new content to the shared cultural heritage of the word in general. The above archeological discovery is also a good example of how important a cultural heritage to a nation, which has extended Chinese history from 5,000 years to at least 8,000 years.

According to the Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG 11), many countries have pledged to “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Under this goal, Target 11.4 aims to “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage”.

Thus, it is high time now, all nations in the world should adopt the concept of “World Heritage Initiative” so as to better protect and conserve our cultural and natural heritage for achieving sustainable development goals.

Culture is a soul of a nation, whereas cultural heritage is a soul of a city, no one wants to live in a city without a soul, i.e. cultural heritage. Living in a city with a concrete jungle will post a great mental stress to its people; there must be a good balance of cultural heritage and modernization in a city in order to balance the life of its people.

The purpose of human life is not just about making dollars and cents, or studying mathematic and science, one needs to appreciate the aesthetic beauty of our cultural heritage also to make our life more balanced. There must be a good balance between development and conservation of historical sites.

Cultural heritage is a nation’s identity card to the world. If one knows how great his own cultural heritage is, it will motivate him to do better for himself and contribute more to his nation so that he will not let down his own nation.

Asian culture talks about filial piety to one’s parents and loyalty to one’s nation. Cultural heritage is a yardstick or benchmark for us to do better than our forefathers in order to glorify our families and manifest our loyalty to our nation.

Tourism without seeing a country’s cultural heritage is only a superficial tourism without a real understanding of a country’s cultural heritage.

The rich diversity of cultural heritage of Asian nations can promote economic growth (cultural tourism, handicrafts, food, etc) and environmental sustainability (cultural and natural heritage preservation). In fact, Asian society shares many common similarities. Asian society is a collective society which is very much different from an individualist society of Western countries.

Moreover, Asian society has a “high power distance”, meaning that Asian society respects those in authority; whereas Western society has a “low power distance”, i.e. its respect for authority is relatively low as compared with that of Asian society.

Since cultural heritage is the shared heritage of all Asian nations, they should work together to conserve our cultural heritage for our present and future generations to learn from the past and appreciate the diversity of our rich Asian cultural heritage.

The uniformity of culture in certain parts of the world was due to colonization and globalization, the diversity of culture should be the way of life in Asia to make our life more meaningful and interesting.

Asian nations should have frequent meetings and conferences to share their experiences in conserving their cultural heritage.

The more advanced nations should assist those less developed nations in Asia on ways and means to conserve their cultural heritage by providing them with financial and technical assistances.

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As President Xi Jinping of China always mentions that we are a community with a shared future for mankind, all Asian nations irrespective of their development level should help each other to conserve our cultural heritage for the benefits of all mankind.

As the Malaysian proverb says, “Don’t know, then don’t love”, if all nations in Asia know each other’s cultural heritage well, then the unity among all Asian nations will be much stable and stronger.

Cross cultural heritage understanding will enhance global understanding and cooperation, and will lead to universal brotherhood, global harmony and world peace.

The author is president of Oriental Culture Research Centre.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.