The safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in China is a state-led social movement involving multiple actors, including government bodies, commercial enterprises, inheritors and communities. Most of the established studies have focused on the tensions between the Chinese state and local communities, taking either a top-down or bottom-up approach, based on cases in regions with developed heritage tourism markets. In contrast, this paper examines how the intermediaries between the state and local communities can draw on forces other than the market to safeguard ICH. We offer Yuzhou embroidery, in Ba County, Chongqing, as a case study. Although the state capacities dedicated to the safeguarding of ICH at the grassroots level are limited, intermediaries can gain access to symbolic resources granted by the state through the accumulation of cultural capital. Thus, they may have more flexibility to cross boundaries, depending on the context, to access state resources from outside the ICH field for its commercialisation. In this semi-formal governance practice, state and cultural actors leverage each other to better safeguard and promote ICH.