What does it actually mean that Hong Kong has become an "international cultural and artistic exchange center"?

Cultural policy is nothing new in Hong Kong. As long as you go to the Hong Kong Home Affairs Bureau website (https://www.hab.gov.hk/en/policy_responsibilities/arts_culture_recreation_and_sport/arts.htm), you will find this version of cultural policy. Looking closely, it is actually the development direction of culture, art, art education, heritage conservation, museums and other development directions formulated by the government after investigation and extended to resource allocation.

In October last year, the former Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying initiated the establishment of the Cultural Affairs Bureau on social media, which attracted renewed attention from the industry. Why is the Cultural Affairs Bureau suddenly mentioned again, because one of the central government's "14th Five-Year Plan" (https://www.cmab.gov.hk/mobile/en/issues/14th_5yrsplan_index.htm) is to promote Hong Kong to become an "international cultural Art Exchange Center", so Mr. Liang believes that "Cultural Affairs Bureau" is necessary.

However, in January this year, Chief Executive Carrie Lam proposed the "Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau" to take over cultural, arts and sports affairs from the Home Affairs Bureau, and film, creative industries and tourism from the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau. The cultural, sports and tourism matters in charge of the bureau will be integrated into one, to strengthen the supervision and promotion of the development of Hong Kong's cultural undertakings, which will help to generate synergies and make Hong Kong a center for cultural and artistic exchanges between China and foreign countries.

In fact, the "Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau" is relatively close to the framework of the "Culture and Tourism Departments" of various provinces and cities in China (Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism http://whly.gd.gov.cn/mindex.html ), not only managing culture and art , art education, museums and monuments, and the integration of business-related projects such as local tourism and local creative industries should be more beneficial to Hong Kong's cultural development than a separate Cultural Affairs Bureau.

What does it actually mean for Hong Kong to become an international cultural and artistic exchange center? First of all, we must know how the "cultural and artistic exchange" is carried out. A place for "cultural and artistic exchanges" usually includes exhibitions, performances, conferences, art festivals, film festivals and film expositions, theater festivals, visual arts expositions, book fairs and literary festivals, international music competitions, music festivals, etc. Among them, support is required for meeting, performance, exhibition and expo venues, accommodation, transportation (overseas to local and local), and catering, so the large number of manpower required is mainly from service industries, not art practitioners. I hope this time the government will not repeat the illusion and misallocation of resources last time because of the art month, which was extended by the annual international art fair.