Vice-Premier Liu Yandong said the Palace Museum will be built into a world class museum with Chinese characteristics during an inspection tour to the museum on Feb 6 in Beijing.

She also emphasized that China should excavate the historical and cultural values from ancient architectures and relics and promote Chinese traditional cultures.

After listening to a project report on “the Palace Museum in safety”, Liu pointed out that the museum has made breakthroughs in many aspects in areas such as relic protection, culture promotion, environment improvement and fire, theft and earthquake prevention.

The project aims to make the Palace Museum in Beijing a model for relic protection. The museum will celebrate its 90th anniversary this year on Oct 10.

Liu stressed that the Palace Museum is the biggest and most complete ancient imperial palace in China. Innovations such as holding various kinds of cultural activities should be developed to enrich people’s spiritual and cultural lives, Liu said. Traditional culture education for teenagers should be enhanced to uplift the country’s soft power and to realize the social value and multiple functions of the museum, she added.

Liu also said that science and technology should be used to help relic protection. Cooperation with universities, scientific research institutions and other international museums should be enhanced, she added.

The vice-premier said international communications should be positively carried out to promote the modernization of Chinese culture and make it more influential.

According to Liu, “the Palace Museum in safety” project is of the utmost importance. The vice-premier also said the environment and order in and around the museum should be improved; and the most urgent and weakest hidden security risks should be eliminated to ensure the safety of both visitors and relics.

The Palace Museum received 15,250 thousand visitors in 2014, the largest volume of visitors in the world last year.