Cheers and Criticisms: A Thematic Analysis of Chinese Netizens’ Responses to the Spring Festival’s UNESCO Inscription

China has been very active in the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) since its ratification of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH adopted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Currently, China tops UNESCO’s Representative List of ICH of Humanity with 44 ICH elements inscribed. However, to our knowledge, few studies have focused on how Chinese public perceive China’s efforts related to UNESCO’s ICH lists. On December 4, 2024, China’s Spring Festival was inscribed by UNESCO. The inscription of the Spring Festival, which is the most important festival in China, presents an ideal case for exploring how state-led ICH initiatives via UNESCO are interpreted within Chinese public sphere. By conducting a thematic analysis of the comments on Chinese social media, this study investigates and discusses Chinese netizens’ responses to the inscription of the Spring Festival on UNESCO’ ICH list. Data were collected by Octopus Collector software from four Chinese social media platforms. The findings demonstrated that Chinese netizens exhibited a wide range of attitudes towards the inscription including pride and jubilation as well as criticism and indifference, which can be further nuanced into more specific subcategories, each with distinct underlying reasons. Besides, an additional observation emerged from the study: The Spring Festival’s UNESCO inscription elicited evident nationalist sentiments from Chinese nezitens, possibly due to the festival’s role as a cultural symbol of national unity and China’s localized reinterpretations of UNESCO ICH framework. The study sheds some light on the diversity and coherence in ordinary Chinese individual’s perspectives and interpretations of UNESCO ICH inscription.