In introducing the background of building ichLinks as the Asia-Pacific ICH information sharing platform, its core values and objectives, implementation schemes, and expected effects are explained. ichLinks plans to serve as a common ground for all the participating Member States to connect with each other. ICHCAP plans to form a one-stop integrated online service platform and an expanded platform based on the participation of Member States by establishing an Executive Committee led by partner organizations from participating Member States for efficient platform operation. In addition, ICHCAP support will address differences and deficiencies resulting from different technological conditions among nations. These actions would help participating states and partner organizations voluntarily and actively using the platform and continue to create new value through multilateral information sharing, exchange, and cooperation. Information and content shared through ichLinks can be constantly recreated and reused as online and offline resources in areas, e.g. festivals, exhibitions, research, and tourism.

The primary value of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) lies in its ability to create locally based knowledge that performers, practitioners, and other participants use to contemplate, understand, and act upon their lives. Its scope is utilitarian as well as spiritual, ethical as well as aesthetic. Through ICH, local participants realise a wide range of benefits—ranging from practical techniques to affirmations of individual identity and group solidarity. National cultural institutions that programmatically recognise this value develop policy both to help safeguard local ICH and to promote cultural diversity, an ethical and political principle that recognises the creativity, beauty, wisdom, and legitimacy of the variety of human cultures. Cultural diversity at a national level can help safeguard local practices of ICH.

Starting my report, I would like to emphasize that ethnic identity has always been represented by a wide range of elements beginning from the basic such as the ethnic self-consciousness. I deliberately abstain from academic style of delivering and specific terms and definitions, under- standing that nowadays the audience is widely represented not only by the professional ethnologists and anthropologists, but by the representatives of culture sector and general public as well.

UNESCO has ten subcategories of human communities and networks, but there are two patterns of human civilizations—sedentary and nomadic communities. Difficulty with archaeologists and historians to explore and discover civilizational heritage information. Nomadic communities served as an ancient networking system, bridging sedentary communities with cultural and technological information. There is a necessity of a network approach on the discovery, excavation, preservation, and public opening of Silk Roads intangible cultural heritages through a singular project hub—namely through ICHCAP. Examples of existing projects include the Caravanserai projects by UNESCO and National Geographic, which focus on tangible heritage along the Silk Roads without considering cultural interconnections and influences. A Korean case is the KBS six-episode documentary series on the origin, spreading and localization of noodle cuisine in Eurasian communities. Another networking case currently under way is the development of series on Silk Roads martial arts, dance, and play through Korea, Japan, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Iran.

Kazakhstan is characterized by ethnic, religious, and cultural diversity. However, the nation has not always had such a multiethnic composition. In the 1920s, Kazakhstan was a republic of the USSR and was mainly monoethnic. The Stalinist leadership aimed at eradicating social classes. To reach this goal, terror and intimidation were employed, targeting mostly members of the clergy, opposition leaders, intellectuals, artists, and former tsarist-government officials. Starting in 1934, political repression was particularly strong. Millions of Soviet citizens were exiled to the Urals, Siberia, and Kazakhstan. Opponents to the Bolsheviks from all over the USSR were held prisoner in concentration camps located in Kazakhstan.

Nepal is a multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural country with rich cultural heritage located between India and China. The 2011 census recognized 125 caste and ethnic groups and 123 different languages. The new constitution of the Nepali federal republic has further recognized all the spoken languages as national languages. The National Foundation for Development of Indigenous Nationalities (NFDIN) recognized fifty-nine indigenous nationalities residing in Nepal in 2002 (NFDIN 2011). However, in the 2011 census only forty-seven indigenous nationalities were reported (CBS 2012). Among them, Tharu is the second-largest indigenous group with a population of 1.7 million residing in various districts of southern Nepal (CBS 2012).