(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-01-03 07:25

The reconstruction of Yuanmingyuan, the summer palace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) court in suburban Beijing that was burned down by British and French allied forces in 1860, has caught the attention of the media again when it was announced that the construction of a replica would start in February this year in Hengdian, a small town in eastern China's Zhejiang Province.

Covering a total area of 411 sq km, the construction of the replica is reported to cost about 20 billion yuan ($2.7 billion), quite a proportion of which will allegedly be used to collect cultural relics of the original summer palace and the remaking of lost relics.

So much controversy and concern from the media and netizens over the project has been generated because of the unique historical messages behind the destroyed palace - if it were still there today, it would be the largest royal garden combining traditional Chinese buildings and Western-style structures. And, the way it was destroyed bears witness to the national humiliation and barbarity of the Western powers at the time.

It is because of these historical messages that the title itself and its ruins are a cultural heritage under State protection and should not be used for business purposes.

As everybody knows, Hengdian is known for its replicas of various well-known sites for filmmaking. It would be no problem to construct a replica of Yuanmingyuan in a smaller size for that purpose, but it would be a problem to reconstruct the summer palace in its original size and in the name of patriotism.

It is even worse for the company involved to use the project to collect money worldwide. At the beginning, the company was reported to be seeking the necessary investment on its own for the project. But the investment it has attracted is 1.16 billion yuan, only 5.8 percent of the total needed. Now it is reported the company will launch public campaigns to collect donations.

We have reason to question its motivation for doing so - it is quite possible that the project is just a ruse for the company to solicit money from the general public. If that is so, we have further reason to ask who has allowed this company to use such a cultural heritage title to collect money.

We do need to do something about it before other companies follow suit by using cultural heritage titles to make money. We need a document to prohibit people from randomly using titles of historical or cultural heritage for business purposes.

(China Daily 01/03/2008 page8)