Opening the Doors of History

By WANG HAIRONG

Opening the Doors of History

By WANG HAIRONG

China’s Central Archives aspires to improve public access to information

China is blessed with a long history,and for millenniums the people of China have used history as a mirror to learn from the past. An important part of the country’s history, all the archives of the Communist Party of China (CPC)and the Central Government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are housed in the Central Archives of China, also known as the State Archives Administration.

Tucked away from downtown Beijing’s Xicheng District, from the outside the Central Archives looks like any of Beijing’s innumerable gray concrete blocks of the 1950s and 60s, but inside the complex of buildings lies a treasure trove of valuable historical information.

“The Central Archives primarily stores documents produced by the CPC before and after the founding of the PRC in 1949, as well as those created by the organs of the Central Government,” said Yang Dongquan,Director of the Central Archives. On May 31, Yang welcomed 70 Chinese and foreign reporters to the Central Archives for an open day.

“All the holdings of the Central Archives are of fi cial documents with a history of at least 20 years,” Yang said. These documents are to be preserved permanently, whereas records of short-term value are stored in the agencies responsible for creating them.

Statistics from the Central Archives indicate as of 2010, it held 1.25 million volumes of records, totaling more than 100 million pages, as well as many photographs, magnetic tapes, videotapes and discs.

“The Central Archives has very few records generated by local governments, as they go to local archives,” Yang said.

Practical value

“Archives play an important role in recording history, advising the government,safeguarding national interests and educating people,” Yang said.

Yang illustrated this point with an example. He said after the CPC’s fi rst National Congress in July 1921, the meeting’s records were lost after the police searched the CPC Central Committee’s offices in Shanghai.For a long time much of what transpired in the meeting remained a mystery.

A PIECE OF HISTORY: A foreign reporter reads a letter put up on the wall of an exhibition hall of the Central Archives. The letter was written by Mao Zedong to Soong Ching-ling, widow of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, shortly before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949

This mystery was solved when, in 1957,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union returned archived material in their possession that contained six important documents directly related to the CPC’s first National Congress. These documents include Russian versions of the Party’s first constitution and the resolution adopted by the meeting.

“From archives, government leaders at various levels can know the truth and learn from past experiences so as to improve their governance capacity,” Yang said.

The Central Archives proactively provides reference information to top government leaders and relevant government departments.

For instance, after the 8.0-magnitude Wenchuan earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan Province in May 2008,researchers at the Central Archives searched and compiled materials on earthquake relief and reconstruction, and gave them to state leaders and the disaster relief headquarters.

“Archives also play an important role in upholding national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Sun Gang, an of fi cial of the Central Archives.

“After a riot for ‘Tibet independence’ broke out in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, on March 14, 2008,the Central Archives quickly presented historical evidence on its Website that prove Tibet has been an integral part of China for centuries,” Sun said.

During the Central Archives’ Open Day, staff also showed reporters a copy of a letter written by the 14th Dalai Lama to Mao Zedong, then Chairman of the Central People’s Government, in October 1951.

The 14th Dalai Lama said in the letter,“The local government of Tibet as well as the Tibetan monks and laymen unanimously support this agreement, and will actively assist the People’s Liberation Army in Tibet to consolidate national defense, drive imperialist in fl uences out of Tibet and safeguard the uni fi cation of the territory and the sovereignty of the motherland.”

It is not just government departments,individuals have also used archives to protect their rights, said Li Xiaoming, Director of the Central Archives’ Science and Technology Department.

In the late 1970s when China implemented the reform and opening-up policy,farmers were given contracts, which allowed them exclusive use of parcels of rural land.These land contracts were filed with the archival institutions. Decades later when the land contracts were to be renewed, many farmers could not fi nd their original contracts. The copies stored in county-level archives enabled farmers to renew their land usage rights.

“When the government started the forest ownership reform in 2006,archival institutions also kept forest contracts for future reference,” Li said.

Public access

To fully realize the value of archives, “we have tried every means to provide services to all sectors of society and to meet the needs of the public,” Yang said.

More than 5,418 people from 1,900 institutions used the Central Archives’ holdings in the past five years, according to its statistics.

Users include work groups entrusted to compile collected works,year books or biographies and histories of Party and state leaders. Some scholars, cultural workers as well as ordinary citizens have also used the records for research or other purposes.

In addition to receiving onsite visitors, the Central Archives provides a number of other services to the public. It delivers consulting services to the public upon request,organizes exhibitions to commemorate important historical events, publishes books, newspapers, journals, CDs and video clips, and even produces documentary fi lms.

At present, about 40 percent of the Central Archives’ holdings are open to the public. To access declassified records,Chinese citizens need to show their identity cards and research achievements in a related fi eld along with letters of introduction from their employers; to access classified documents, the applicants must get approval from the relevant organizations such as the General Office of the provincial level government.

“In recent years, more and more ordinary citizens have used archives,” said Guo Siping, the Central Archives’ spokeswoman.She explained most documents accessed by ordinary citizens are related to their own rights and interests, such as real property records, marriage records and registered permanent residence records.

Guo also said any foreign national or organization is permitted to access the archived documents in China after getting approval from the archival institution holding the records.

ARCHIVES ON DISPLAY: More than 500 historical records collected by the Central Archives are exhibited in Beijing on June 24

The Central Archives determines whether a record should be open to the public primarily according to the provisions of the Archives Law and the regulations on its implementation.

The law, enacted in 1987 and amended in 1996, states documents held by the Central Archives’ should be open to the public 30 years after their creation. Economic, scientific, technological and cultural records can be declassified sooner than 30 years; whereas archives unsuitable for public access,such as those concerning national security and other signi fi cant national interests of importance to national security and defense, foreign affairs,religion and personal privacy, shall be restricted for more than 30 years.

“All records created before 1949 were opened to the public in November 1990 and of those created after 1949, some remain classi fi ed because of their signi fi cance in national security and international relations,”Guo said.

She explained records may not be opened to the public if they involve privacy, commercial secrets, ethnic disputes, intellectual property rights,or if they are simply not well preserved enough for public access.

But Professor Shen said China’s archives authorities tend to be too conservative in opening records.

“Many people in archival institutions still stick to the old way of thinking. They believe their duty is to keep rather than preserving records for public use,” Shen said.

He also calls for the reform of China’s archival management system to separate archive preservation from declassi fi cation.

“When an agency entrusted to preserve the records can determine whether to open the records to the public, it does not have an incentive to provide these records, for denying access can save them trouble,” Shen said.

“Providing information to the public is an important part of our job. We will try our best to use our current resources to meet people’s need for archival information,” Guo said. She said China’s archival institutions were making efforts to improve the accessibility of the archives. One such effort is to digitize declassified archival information,and make the information available on the Internet.