Macao Wushu Association — Duan Grade Examination & Evaluation Center
Closely aligned with the spirit of the "Opinions on Implementing the Project for the Inheritance and Development of China's Fine Traditional Culture" and with the "Wushu Industry Development Plan (2019–2025)" strategy of "helping Chinese Wushu 'go global'", the Macao Wushu Association — addressing today's core pain points of broken lineages, inconsistent international standards, and insufficient adaptation to the times — launches, as the initiating body, the "China Martial-Vein Guardian Program" (the "Program").
Rooted in the core hub of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and drawing on its position as a bridge between East and West and decades of grassroots heritage practice, the Association has become an important gateway for Chinese Wushu to reach global markets. As the initiator, it fully leads the Program's implementation and integrates its own strengths to build a new development ecosystem for Wushu — one led by standards, supported by talent, empowered by culture, and driven by industry.
The Program focuses on three key goals: first, to systematically explore and organize traditional Wushu-style resources worldwide, rescue endangered skills, and build a complete lineage genealogy of styles; second, to formulate a scientific, unified traditional-Wushu system based on those findings, breaking down barriers to international transmission; and third, to advance the market-based and international promotion of these systematized resources — achieving a win-win of cultural inheritance and industry development, and ultimately elevating Wushu from a "regional skill" to "shared heritage of humankind".
Since its founding in 1985, the Association has undergone three organisational reforms and built a three-tier "Association – member club – martial-arts school" management network, with over 12,000 registered members, 126 affiliated organisations and 12 specialised committees for traditional styles. It has accumulated solid experience in the exploration and organisation of traditional Wushu, youth training and regional cooperation. As Macau's representative body certified by the International Wushu Federation, it has hosted seven consecutive Asian Wushu Championships and co-hosted the 2019 World Wushu Championships, demonstrating top-tier event-operation capability.
Leveraging Macau's position "backed by the motherland, facing the world", the Association has built regular cooperation with the Wushu union of Portuguese-speaking countries, sending over 30 professional coaches abroad each year and becoming an important gateway for Chinese Wushu into Latin-language countries; it is also deeply involved in building the Greater Bay Area Wushu Alliance. In 2024, it pioneered the "Macau Traditional Wushu Duan Certification Pilot", completing the exploration and draft standards for the first three distinctive Lingnan styles. In 2025, building on these results, the Association formally upgraded the Program, as the initiating body, into a global action for exploring and organising traditional Wushu styles.
As initiator, the Association leads the systematic worldwide exploration and organisation of traditional styles. It forms professional research teams that reach into Wushu communities in China and around the world, rescuing endangered skills through oral-history recording, manual (quanpu) collation and video preservation; it simultaneously conducts an overseas census of traditional styles and leads the creation of a "Global Traditional-Style Resource Database", fully archiving lineage genealogies, core techniques and cultural meaning, and establishes a "Global Traditional-Wushu Systematisation Expert Committee".
The approach includes: a four-dimension model — "historical origin + state of survival + cultural value + international potential" — to select distinctive styles; a research model of "lineage-inheritor-led + interdisciplinary support"; an open submission channel encouraging niche lineage communities worldwide to contribute materials; and systematic compilation of results into foundational works such as the "Global Register of Traditional Styles" and the "Atlas of Core Techniques of Traditional Styles".
Centred on the exploration results, the Association leads a four-in-one "technique – culture – lineage – character" Duan-grade standard framework, driving "standardised findings, internationalised standards". With the Association's Duan Grade Examination & Evaluation Center as the global hub, it coordinates a "1+N" cross-border evaluation network. Standards are tied closely to talent development: Levels (1–12) focus on foundational technique for global youth; Duan grades (1–6) strengthen teaching ability and tactical application; high Duan grades (7–9) emphasise cultural research and international transmission. It also innovates martial-virtue (wude) education, turning "practising virtue as well as martial skill" into measurable evaluation indicators.
With standardised style resources at the core, the Association builds an integrated "events – training – cultural-creative" promotion engine. It plans international brand events such as the "World Traditional Wushu Masters Tournament", running a dual-track "professional competition + public experience" model alongside a "Wushu Carnival". In training and cultural-creative work, it develops "standardised + customised" cross-border service packages, a "Martial-Vein Guardian" themed product matrix, and "Wushu + tourism" fusion products — turning cultural inheritance into economic empowerment and vice versa.
The Association leads a "Guardian Program" international collaboration network, connecting with the International Wushu Federation, continental federations, national associations and key global organisations; it deepens cooperation especially with Greater Bay Area and "Belt and Road" partners, and issues the "International Partner Admission & Collaboration Standards".
A three-dimension system of "event exchange + new-media communication + academic output": an annual "Traditional Wushu Masters World Tour" and a "Global Traditional Wushu Development White Paper"; and, targeting Gen Z, a #MyWushuStory challenge on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms with youthful, engaging content.
The Association leads a global digital collaborative-management platform in three phases: a cross-border evaluation system with multi-language support launching in 2027; AI action-recognition for remote technique pre-checks in 2028; and a fully developed global style-resource database by 2030.
Organisation: a Program leadership group with a regular consultation mechanism. Resources: integration of funding, talent and venues, a dedicated fund, and participation of social capital. Institutions: a series of rules including "Program Implementation Details", "Evaluation Management Measures" and "International Cooperation Standards".
Three visions: completing the systematic exploration of the world's key traditional styles and building a living heritage system; constructing an internationalised traditional-Wushu standard system; and creating internationally influential Wushu IP and training brands — forming a virtuous cycle of "explore → standardise → promote → feed back into heritage", so that the Wushu philosophy of "stopping conflict is martial (止戈为武)" and "unity of heaven and humanity (天人合一)" is woven into global development thinking.
This Program is initiated by the Macao Wushu Association and implemented by its Duan Grade Examination & Evaluation Center, which sincerely invites Wushu organisations, inheritors and enthusiasts worldwide to join the "Martial-Vein Guardian Program" and build a new ecosystem for Wushu together.
Duan Grade Examination & Evaluation Center, Macao Wushu Association
18 November 2025