The Chinese Medicine Commission of China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association was established in Beijing on Saturday.

The commission aims enhance the protection, inheritance and innovation of Chinese medicine's intangible cultural heritage. Cao Hongxin, former head of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, was named head of the Chinese Medicine Commission.

A coordination committee also was founded at the same time.

Li Jinzao, vice-minister of China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, is the director and the vice-directors include Sun Da, vice-director of the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Zhang Boli, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of the Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

According to Li, so far 137 traditional Chinese medicines have been listed as items of China Intangible Cultural Heritage. Since 2012 China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has spent 113 million yuan ($16 million) to protect and inherit traditional Chinese medicine's intangible cultural heritage from a national special fund that is used to protect intangible cultural heritage.

Acupuncture and moxibustion of traditional Chinese medicine and China's Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa were listed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010 and 2018.

(China Daily)