Whether the governments should fund the arts and how to fund the arts is an important topic in the contemporary cultural policy and theory.From the perspective of cultural history,all kinds of support methods cannot fully meet the needs of the arts.Although most governments in the civilized world continue to support or subsidize the arts,there are a series of contradictions and difficulties in the theory and practice,and is no satisfactory solution so far.Based on the consideration of the improvement and reform of Chinese cultural policy,this paper takes relevant disputes between Britain and America as a clue and analyzes the divergence and complexity about arts funded by the governments.Then combining with cultural transformation resulting from cultural industry development,it puts forward the theme of the cultural policy focusing on government subsidies.