Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield Meets with People’s Republic of China Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Li Qun

Today in Washington, D.C., Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield met with the People's Republic of China Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Li Qun to discuss the recently extended U.S.-PRC cultural property agreement and associated goals of protecting heritage, promoting exchanges of experts in the fields of archaeology and cultural heritage, and increasing American and Chinese public access to cultural heritage by fostering museum-to-museum collaborations.

Assistant Secretary Satterfield and Vice Minister Li discussed opportunities for further cooperation on cultural heritage protection and other areas of mutual interest, including people-to-people exchanges. The Assistant Secretary underscored that the United States remains committed to expanding people-to-people ties with the People's Republic of China, as President Biden and President Xi affirmed at their meeting in Woodside, California last fall and in their April 2 phone call.

The United States and the People's Republic of China first entered into a cultural property agreement on January 14, 2009. The agreement counters trafficking of cultural property while encouraging the legal exchange of such property for cultural, educational, and scientific purposes. The U.S.-PRC cultural property agreement was negotiated by the State Department under the U.S. law implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property. In accordance with U.S. law, the agreement and associated import restrictions were extended in 2014, 2019, and 2024.