By Xu Aiying and Sohn JiAe
Photos = Heo Man-jin, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

Culture ministers from Korea, Japan and China jointly adopted the Kyoto Declaration that outlines how to implement trilateral cultural exchanges, in Kyoto, Japan, on Aug. 26.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Do Jongwhan, Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology Yoshimasa Hayashi (林芳正) and Chinese Minister of Culture Luo Shugang (雒树刚) signed the declaration at the two-day 9th Korea-Japan-China Cultural Ministers’ Meeting.

In the Kyoto Declaration, the three nations pledged to work together for the success of next February’s PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, and to carry out the Cultural City of East Asia project, a plan to select one city in each of the three countries to hold various cultural activities.

The three also agreed to promote exchanges among their artists and youth, exchanges among cultural facilities, jointly protect and conserve their cultural heritage items, and boost cooperation across cultural industries and copyright protection.



The three ministers decided to host a variety of joint cultural programs in the run-up to and during the PyeongChang Olympic Winter Games next year. The joint project will begin with the Korea-China-Japan Photo Exhibition slated to be held at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History in Seoul on Sept. 5, followed by six more events, including the 2017 PyeongChang Festival for Korean, Chinese and Japanese Poets and a special exhibition titled the Art Exhibition on Korean, Japanese and Chinese Tigers.

Minister Do pointed out that the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games would be followed by the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games and then the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, stressing that nothing could be more important than successfully hosting the PyeongChang Games to kickoff this East Asian Olympic trio.

“The Culture Ministers’ Meeting in Kyoto has hopefully helped to deepen our trilateral cooperation and exchanges,” said the Korean minister. “I expect that a more concrete action plan for the next three years will be mapped out at next year’s meeting in China.”

xuaiy@korea.kr