Rules for relics unveiled in new museum guidelines

China's State-owned museums are public institutions, which generally lack enterprising business models, and many existing management problems are attributed to the institutions' overwhelming dependence on government administration and aid, Song says.

"The private museum boom nationwide in the last decade brought unprecedented challenges and made us realize that people's demand for museums is diverse, and therefore the urgency to promulgate such a regulation," he says.

"It will upgrade management levels and will simultaneously provide the industry with professional guidance that was considered insufficient in China so far."

Though Song feels the new rules are good first steps, he says they have limitations.

For example, popular science institutions and military museums are not included in the regulation.

"The regulation focuses on museums exhibiting cultural relics, and does not pay equal attention to those of folklore, nature science and the fine arts, but a complete museum system should include a wider range," he adds.

In addition, it might be difficult to coordinate efforts of different government departments to implement the regulation because the cultural relics administration is not the only department responsible for museum management.

"Perhaps, a national museum law is still needed to solve such problems," Song says.