In the morning of May 18^th, the opening ceremony of the 2021 “International Museum Day” was held in China’s Capital Museum, the main venue in China. It’s hosted by National Cultural Heritage Administration, Beijing Municipal People’s Government, Chinese Museum Association, Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, Beijing Museum Society, Capital Museum and related museums in Beijing. Attendees were Hu Heping, minister and secretary of the leading party group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Chen Jining, mayor and vice secretary of Beijing Municipal CPC committee, Li Qun, director of National Cultural Heritage Administration and vice minister of culture and tourism, Wang Xudong, president of the Palace Museum and member of the leading party group of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Yang Bin, vice mayor and member of the leading party group of Beijing Municipal Government, Jin Wei, vice mayor and member of the leading party group of Beijing Municipal Government, Guan Qiang, deputy director and member of the leading party group of the National Cultural Heritage Administration and heads of the Cultural Exchange Organization of Presenting China to the World.

    In the opening ceremony, Hu Heping and Chen Jining jointly started the exhibition named “Pursuing Eternity: Conservation of Museum Collections in China”. Guan Qiang and Yang Bin signed “Strategic Cooperation Agreement on The Joint construction of Beijing Museum City by The National Cultural Heritage Administration and Beijing Municipal People's Government”. Several events started together, including “Museum 5G New Life” organized by National Cultural Heritage Administration and China Mobile and “China's national treasure” hosted by National Cultural Heritage Administration and central radio and television station. Other activities, like “Golden Microphone in Museums Lead You to Read China”.

    Li Qun said in his speech that with social participation as well as care and support of the CPC and the country, museum development had achieved significant result. First, the top-level designing of museums improved and reforms had been carried out in all aspects, including, collection protection, exhibition, exploitation, education service and institution management. The 9^th meeting of the central leading group of cultural system reform and development passed the “Guidance to Push Museum Reform and Development” which would be published recently. Second the system and layout of museums would be optimized. Since the “13^th Five Year” plan, on average, a new museum was added to China every two days. At the end of 2020, there were 5788 museums registered in China, among which 1224 were of national first, second or third level, so a modern museum system was basically formed with various types and diverse organizer. Third, the social function of museums was improved significantly. All museums in the world were influenced by the pandemic, but in China in 2020, there had been 29 thousand exhibitions, 225 thousand education events, 540 million museum visitors and tones of millions of online visitors. In a new era, museums needed to carry out their responsibilities and to make full use of functions of collection, research, education, exhibition and knowledge spread to meet people's demand for better lives; to follow the new development principle and to innovate the museum system to push forward modern governance system and ability; to construct a new development structure to solve the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development and form a high-quality development system for museum and to carry out new development mission to serve the mission to build a country with strong culture, so as to improve the international influence of Chinese civilization.

    Yang Bin said in his speech that when the general secretary Xi Jinping visited the capital museum, he made important instructions which were principles for high-quality development of museum. In recent years, museums in Beijing had progressed under the guidance of the National Cultural Heritage administration. From now on, with the joint effort of society and all museum practitioners, Beijing would have a museum system with reasonable layout, optimized structure, fresh features, full vitality and complete functions, so “the city of museum” would be in Beijing’s introduction to the world.

    Alberto Garlandini, chairman of International Council of Museums (ICOM), sent his congratulation through video. He recognized the long-term and successful cooperation between ICOM and China’s museum industry and advocated that museums all over the world should work together to build a bridge between people and culture of different countries so as to promote the diverse development of culture.

    In the opening ceremony, the winners lists of 2021 “the most innovative museum in China” and the 18^th (2020) “the outstanding exhibits in museums in China”. In the afternoon of May 18^th, the forum of the International Museum Day would be held in the Capital Museum to discuss the development of museums in a new era. In the evening, the Capital Museum would organized an event called “the Night of Museum” which integrated exhibition, drama, dance and Beijing Opera. All kinds of museums in Beijing would hold a series of characteristic exhibitions, seminars, education, public experiencing and promotion of cultural relics, so as to enable cultural relics to serve contemporary development.

    The theme of the 2021 “5·18 International Museum Day” was “The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine”. In the future, museums should cope with many social, economic and environmental challenges, so they needed to adjust and perfect their function positioning and development direction as well as to explore new mindset, mode and plans.

    Following the plan of National Cultural Heritage Administration, there would be thousands of “International Museum Day” themed events with rich content and various forms. Relating events were held in multiple places, including Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Henan, Guangxi, Xizang, Shaanxi, Gansu and Xinjiang as well as in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Before and after May 18^th, new exhibitions were held in Hebei Museum, Liaoning Museum, Shanxi Museum, Henan Museum, Gansu Museum, Guizhou Museum and Zhengzhou Museum. On May 18^th, free service would be provided by tour guide in many museums in Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Guangxi and other places. Besides, there would be online activities, including online exhibition, live stream and quiz of museum knowledge as well as offline activities, including mobile exhibition, cultural lecture, antique authentication, cultural innovation publishing, interactive experience, education and research.