04.07.2023

Meetings with Chinese colleagues

From June 27 to 30, 2023, a delegation of the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan visited the People's Republic of China (PRC). On June 27, a meeting was held with the head of the National Archives Administration of China, Lu Guoqiang. The delegation of the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan had the special program which included visits to the National Archives Administration of China, the First Historical Archives of China, the Second Historical Archives of China, and the Beijing Archive. During the meeting with the head of the National Archives Administration of China, issues of cooperation between the Kazakh and Chinese archives were discussed. During the excursion about Archive, the reading room and exhibition halls were demonstrated. The Archive uses modern IT-technologies, through special programs one can view archive directories, guidebooks, etc. Researchers work with digitized copies of documents. Original archival documents are not issued. Kazakh archivists were shown copies of documents on Kazakh-Chinese trade relations in the 19th century, documents on the trade of medicines in the Manchu language. The exhibition uses modern museum equipment. Every exhibition hall presents a thematic topic on the history of China. The exhibitions use only copies of archival documents. During the excursion of the Archive, the director of the Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Aliya Mustafina, wrote in the book of VIP guests.

On June 28, the Kazakh delegation visited the Beijing Archive. A meeting was held with the director of the Archive Chen Leren. The Archive stores 2.6 million archival files.
The Archive stores documents of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the history of the Chinese revolution, public associations, business, culture, the Asian Games, the Universiade and Beijing's applications for the summer and winter Olympic Games, etc.
During the excursion, digitization, restoration and preservation of documents were demonstrated.
The Archive uses only Chinese-made equipment.
The Beijing Archives moved to a new building in 2019. The Archives has spacious halls for organizing archival exhibitions.
On June 29, the Kazakh delegation visited the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing. The archive stores archival documents from 1912 to 1949.
In 2021, the construction of a new building of the Second Historical Archives began.
During the excursion, Chinese colleagues demonstrated digitization, restoration of documents, and the Archive's Security Hardware and Software Complex. Then the new building of the Archive was shown. The construction and installation of archival building finished. Archival equipment and furniture will be installed soon. Today only the conference hall is ready. A film about the construction of the Archive building was shown in the conference hall.

During the visit, the Chinese colleagues showed and spoke in detail about archival work. On the meetings, cooperation between the archives of Kazakhstan and China, the organization of joint research and educational archival projects were discussed.