For a thousand years, the Grand Canal has connected the past and the present, nourished the lands along its banks, and witnessed the striving and rise of the Chinese nation. In 2014, the Grand Canal, connecting Beijing and Hangzhou, a city in east China's Zhejiang Province, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In June 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping made an instruction on the building of a cultural belt along the canal: "The Grand Canal is precious heritage passed down to us by our ancestors and is flowable culture that should be protected, inherited and utilized."