Five years after the Cultural Relics Protection Law took effect, the State has still not set aside any money to reward people who prevent treasures from being robbed or destroyed.

Shan Jixiang, a member of China's top political advisory body, yesterday recommended that provisions be made for such rewards.

"The law explicitly prescribes rewarding meritorious deeds in protecting cultural relics," Shan said during the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

"But since the State has not reserved special funds for that end, the provision has never really been implemented."

The failure to do so makes a mockery of the law and is detrimental to the protection of cultural treasure, said Shan, who is also chief of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

At least 400,000 relic sites have been discovered in China, though only 17.5 percent of them are protected by the government.

Despite repeated crackdowns, the country's cultural relics, especially those not included on the State protection list, face a growing threat from smugglers, tomb raiders, thieves, and other sources of degradation.

"But if the general public is mobilized and offered incentives to protect the treasures, it could be another story," Shan said.

A case in point is Wang Ningxian, a farmer in Meixian County in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, who discovered 27 bronze pieces later identified as national treasures in January 2003 and turned them all over to the government.

Archaeologists said the inscribed bronze-ware, which belonged to an aristocratic family living in the Western Zhou Dynasty (1100-771 BC), offered important material for historical study.

Wang and four other villagers were each awarded 20,000 yuan (US$2,410) and were invited to Beijing and abroad to inaugurate the exhibitions of what they found.

News of the reward apparently traveled quickly.

In the past four years, farmers in the same region reported or turned over to local heritage agencies 11 collections of relics they happened to unearth in their farming work.

Several hundred farmers in Liping County, in Guizhou Province, who spent three days and nights recovering the remaining structure of an ancient wooden bridge that had been washed away in a July 2004 flood, also received rewards.

At a time of rampant tomb-raiding and theft, it is important to reward people who report to the government when they discover cultural relics or help prevent damages to such relics, Shan said.

The bonuses mainly come from the 500,000 yuan ($64,102) Shan's agency manages to piece together each year from multiple sources to offset the absence of any State funds for the purpose.

"This is far from sufficient," he explained.

The government should highlight the role people play in voluntarily protecting historic relics, and a State fund should be set up for this purpose as soon as possible, he added.

(China Daily March 9, 2007)