Keeper of the past

China celebrates UNESCO founding with pledge to protect its own sites and do more, Wang Kaihao reports.

Preservers of Chinese heritage gathered at Palace Museum in Beijing last week to celebrate 70 years of the founding of UNESCO and the 30th anniversary of China's ratification of the World Heritage Convention.

The Palace Museum, which is also known as the Forbidden City, the Mogao Caves in Northwest China's Gansu province, and sections of the Great Wall were among the first six Chinese locations to be declared UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1987. With 48 today, China has the world's most such sites after Italy.