From September 1st to September 6th, Zhang Rouran, a teacher from the College of Tourism and Service Management of Nankai University, was invited to participate in the 4th Association Critical Heritage Studies held at Zhejiang University. It was themed with “Heritage across borders”, which indicates that interdisciplinary and cross-border heritage research is a new upsurge of cultural heritage research. More than 400 delegates attended this conference.

Dr. Zhang Rouran and Dr. Xie Jieyi presided over the chapter as “Declaration and Management of World Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region”, entitled China Value VS World Heritage Value – About West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The report discusses the process of Hangzhou West Lake's application for World Heritage, during which Chinese experts have tried to embody China's traditional values in the text of the declaration of West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou, but international experts have judged the value of the West Lake based on their own subjective and traditional Western value standards. Dr. Zhang Rouran analyzed in detail the differences between Chinese and western understanding of west lake's value in the assessment text of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).