Introduction

Abstract

The text and other elements (illustrations, imported files) are "All rights reserved", unless otherwise stated. 2For the past forty years (a timeframe which corresponds to the Four Modernisation period in China and to the fall of the USSR), Russia, Mongolia and China have met with deep cultural, economic and socio-political transformations, in conjunction with a progressive opening towards the globalised world. Heritage, which is not a recent notion in these countries (Matsuda & Mengoni 2016; for Russia: Chistov et al. 2004; for China: Fresnais 2001; Zhang 2003), appears as a process tool into those changes. While Russia, Mongolia and China have signed the various UNESCO conventions 2 , differences in cultural management can be observed. The various translations and interpretations of these conventions have led to specific heritage policies in the three countries which are the focus of our interest, a phenomenon which is, however, not limited to them. Indeed, numerous studies have already analysed the different implementations of the 2003 UNESCO Convention by the states that have signed them 3 . For one thing, studies generally highlight invisible hierarchies of census processes which raise several challenges, especially for minority groups (Tornatore 2011). For another, numerous scholars show local adaptations to the implementation of heritage in post-Soviet, multiethnic or rural contexts (