To Rebuild or Not to Rebuild?

Beijing has been gripped by zhuangxiu fever for a while now, but one particular renovation project is not going over quite so well: officials from Yuanmingyuan, Beijing's old imperial summer palace, have announced that after years of debate, the old palace gate of the Garden of Eternal Spring (Changchunyuan Gongmen), which was once used as the exclusive entrance for the emperor, will be rebuilt and preserved as a cultural relic.

Initial construction on Yuanmingyuan began with Qing Emperor Kangxi in 1707 and, over the next 150 years through the reigns of five emperors, it was expanded into the largest imperial garden in the world. In 1860, during the Second Opium War, the palace was plundered by Anglo-French forces (although contrary to popular opinion, a great deal of the complex, including 16 main scenic spots and 23 buildings, actually survived the invasion), only to be ravaged yet again at the hands of the Eight-Powers Allied army, who captured Beijing in 1900. The ensuing years of the early 20th century saw local looters strip the area in search of valuable stones, and Yuanmingyuan would stand in disrepair for decades until the government deemed it a National Cultural Heritage site in 1976.

Tumultuous history aside, this latest renovation announcement is unwelcome news to critics who believe that renovating Yuanmingyuan would not only be a drain on funds and resources, but potentially diminish its role as the de facto symbol of the hardships suffered by China at the hands of foreign aggressors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However officials have publicly stated that while they fully acknowledge the sensitive nature of the controversy, the project has been "approved by State Administration of Cultural Heritage" and would involve the reconstruction of ten percent of the park’s old buildings, including the palace walls. Work is scheduled to start early next year once they have finished clearing the surroundings.

To date, only one structure, the Enlightenment Temple (Zhengjue Si) in the southern part of Wanchunyuan, has been renovated before, and last year a project to cover the bottom of Yuanmingyuan lake with plastic to prevent leakage (the park spends a couple of million yuan each year replacing the water in the lake multiple times each year) was called offafter only ten days by the State Environmental Protection Administration of China after a flurry of criticism from scientists and environmentalists.

Part of the current controversy stems from the question of who actually owns the development rights to Yuanmingyuan – the Haidian district government, The Ministry of Cultural Heritage, The Beijing Parks and Gardens Bureau all lay claim to the site. Meanwhile, as Chinese NGOs and philanthropists (like Macau tycoon Stanley Ho) work to reacquire some of Yuanmingyuan’s looted cultural relics – many of which were taken or sold overseas and are now held in museum in various countries – questions remain as to whether or not the site can now provide the right conditions and technology to preserve them. To complicate things even further, developers have also been trying to secure permission to construct roads and build villas on the site.

All criticism notwithstanding, the rebuilt gate is set to be completed by this time next year, allowing visitors the chance to see the gate as it looked 150 years ago.

Links and Sources:
Official Site of Yuanmingyuan
Wikipedia: Old Summer Palace
Sina: 环保总局审查决定 圆明园部分防渗膜须拆除
NetEase: 圆明园花1.5亿铺设防渗膜　专家称是生态灾难
Chinapage.com: Yuanmingyuan, the Garden of all Chinese Gardens