From 1980 to 1997, China sponsored more than 1,700 art exhibitions and 300 cultural relic exhibitions abroad. Foreign countries held 900 art exhibitions in China. In addition to units under the Ministry of Culture, other central governmental organs and local governments worked with corresponding foreign institutions and organizations to launch extensive cultural exchange programs, including personnel exchanges, professional inspections, giving lectures, and business cooperation. They undertook growingly more exchange projects through all these years. For instance, the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and their affiliated associations launched 1,406 cultural exchange projects, relating to 8,509 persons, from 1980 to 1990. They involve 82 countries and regions from across the world. They expanded by hundred times over those before 1966.

China’s exchanges with foreign countries in art performances and art exhibitions were particularly active, winning admirable results. Chinese art troupes going abroad or foreign art troupes visiting China comprised both large-scale ones of more than 100 performers and small ones of only one individual performer. China’s outstanding acrobatics, songs and dances, and traditional Chinese operas produced sensations when performed in many countries and regions, bringing forth a great deal of fans of Chinese acrobatics, Peking opera, and traditional Chinese operas. In 1986, eight Chinese art troupes simultaneously took part in the Paris Autumn Festival, staging more than 100 performances of rich Chinese national characteristics across France. This festival was therefore reputed as a China Year. Pei Yanling, a famous Hebei Bangzi performing artist, acted the leading role in Zhong Kui in Japan and Singapore, starting up a “Pei Yanling Cyclone” that showed the treasure of the Chinese theatrical art.

Since 1985, Sichuan opera performing troupes from Sichuan Province had visited 12 countries and regions in Europe and Asia, winning high approval of foreign audiences. With their superb skills and vivid artistic languages, Chinese artists displayed to people of all countries the centuries-old Chinese history, splendid culture, and achievements of socialist culture and art. They facilitated friendship and mutual understanding among the countries. The world famous National Circus of the Soviet Union, the Bolshoi Theatre Ballet and Choir of Soviet Union, EU Youth Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra of the United States, Bavaria State Opera House of West Germany, BALLET DE L'OPERA DE PARIS of France, MATSUYAMA BALLET of Japan, and Mansuda Art Ensemble of PDRK, and world famous artists Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menhuin, Seiji Ozawa, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, visited and performed in China, leaving great effects.

Meanwhile, China sponsored many important art exhibitions abroad, such as China Ming and Qing Dynasty Paintings Exhibition, China Contemporary Paintings Exhibition, China Contemporary Oil Paintings Exhibition, and the exhibitions of the works of such artists as Qi Baishi, Xu Beihong and Liu Haisu. They attracted many heads of state, heads of government, and social celebrities to attend the opening ceremonies. Audiences came in an endless stream. Many works were purchased and collected by museums and art galleries. Exhibitions of cultural relics attracted even more audiences.

The Chinese Bronze Exhibition and Chinese Ancient Art Exhibition, shown in the United States, received more than one million audiences respectively. The China Qin Dynasty Terra-Cotta Army Exhibition, displayed in Japan, beckoned more than two million audiences. All sorts of foreign art exhibitions are also held in Beijing and other Chinese cities, enabling the Chinese people to appreciate excellent paintings, sculptures, historical relics, and folk handicrafts from Europe, the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America. They widened the fields of vision of Chinese audiences, and enabled them to learn from the foreign treasures.

In 1997, China held a large-scale photo show in more than 100 countries, in the theme of the History and Today of Hong Kong, presenting to the world the history and development of Hong Kong, and the significance of its return to the Chinese motherland.