More Historic Beijing Buildings Endangered?

CHP: China Heritage Update 19 July 2006

The continuing loss of old courtyard houses as developers demolish one hutong neighborhood after another in the old city of Beijing is well known and much bemoaned. But we at CHP are also vigilant about the loss of buildings of more recent vintage that have architectural distinctiveness and are also part of Beijing’s historic architectural heritage.

Most recently we have become aware of plans to demolish two landmarks of Beijing dating from the 1950’s, well known to anyone who has driven down Chang An Avenue in the heart of downtown Beijing. These are the two original Foreign Trade Department buildings designed by Xu Zhong and constructed in 1954. They are situated not far from Tian An Men Square on the south side of Chang An Avenue, opposite the Oriental Plaza.

In the early years after the founding of the Peoples’ Republic of China, a group of architects sought to embody the artistry and style of the Chinese people in their contemporary architectural designs. The result was the construction of some fine buildings that incorporate regional and traditional elements. The two most outstanding examples of this effort dating from the 1950s are Shanghai’s Memorial Hall of Lu Xun and the Foreign Trade Bureau of Beijing.

Xu Zhong, who designed the Foreign Trade Bureau buildings, was born in 1912 in Jiangsu, graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of Central University in 1937, and earned a Master’s Degree in architecture from the University of Illinois. Returning to China in 1939, he taught at Central University and the University of Nanjing. In addition to a number of buildings that he designed on his own, he was part of the design team for the People’s Hero Monument, the Great Hall of the People, and the Beijing Library before his death in 1985.

The Foreign Trade Buildings on Chang An Avenue are inspired by the traditional architecture of northern China, using gray brick and tiles, curved roof lines, out-reaching eaves, traditional balustrades, and pure lines to create a modern building for public administrative use. This adaptation of traditional architectural forms, preserving the spirit of China’s indigenous architectural tradition but using it in a modern context, resulted in an elegant and distinctive building that is a great contribution to the grandness of Chang An Avenue, and is also a significant part of China’s architectural heritage. The contrast of this tasteful building with the Hong Kong-inspired commercial buildings of Oriental Plaza across the street could not be more striking.

Now Xu Zhong’s beautiful buildings are threatened with demolition, not to be replaced by some developer’s real estate project, but simply to make space in front of the Ministry of Commerce’s skyscraper headquarters immediately to its rear. To tear down two such exquisite buildings in order to have a clearer view of yet another bland glass and steel skyscraper, indistinguishable from any other skyscraper, does not make sense.

We call on the Minister of Commerce and the planning authorities of the City of Beijing to reconsider this most unfortunate plan. Leave Xu Zhong’s elegant buildings to be the cultured and tasteful “face” of the Ministry of Commerce, and to provide a touch of elegance to Chang An Avenue.














Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)

http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

Preserving Dai Culture for Posterity

CHP: China Heritage Update 1 April 2006

In a broad valley in a remote corner of southern Yunnan Province, in the District of Meng Lian, twenty kilometers from the Burmese border, lie a number of Dai villages. The Dai of these villages are heirs to a culture dating back hundreds of years to a time when the Dai formed a powerful kingdom dominating southern Yunnan Province and contiguous areas of Burma. Over the centuries this kingdom broke up into a number of small Dai states, each headed by a jaofa, or Lord of Heaven. These states gradually fell under the suzerainty of Beijing dynastic rule, and the Chinese emperor gave each jaofa the title of tusi, or local administrator, in the Chinese system of governing outlying ethnic minority areas.

Despite Chinese suzerainty, the Dai in these areas continued to live as their ancestors had, with Dai culture very much intact, with almost no influence from Han culture. All this changed after 1949, when the new Chinese government asserted strong administrative control over the Dai and other minority groups in Yunnan and elsewhere around the nation. From the 50s through the early 70s, aspects of traditional Dai culture came under attack as they were perceived to be “feudal”. Today, in addition to the cultural disruption which occurred during those ideologically driven decades, the continuity of Dai culture is threatened by the same modernizing influences that are bringing about change in all traditional Asian cultures, and also by the economic and social attractiveness of China’s dominant Han culture.

In February of this year, I traveled to Meng Lian District to review the progress of CHP’s Dai Culture Documentation Project in Meng Ma Village. Initiated in the spring of 2005, this project is a grassroots culture documentation project: after initial training and organization by CHP, the documentation work is being carried out by the villagers themselves, with support and encouragement from the Meng Lian District Culture Department.

Due to the cultural disruptions that occurred during the period 1950-1975, and to the ongoing impact of modern development and increasing Han cultural influence in the area, knowledge of the traditional Dai culture is gradually atrophying, and young people are no longer literate in the Dai script or knowledgeable about their Dai cultural heritage. The elders of the Dai villages are the repositories of the Dai heritage; if they do not record and pass on to the next generation the knowledge of their ancestors, this heritage will disappear as the older generation dies off. It is therefore critical to act at this time to fully document this heritage, and also to provide cultural role models that will inspire the next generation to respect and become interested in their own culture at the same time that they are integrated into the Chinese nation and move with ease in the dominant Han culture.

CHP undertook the initial conceptualization and structuring of the project. Cultural documentation was broken down into 20 categories, including religious practices, sacred aspects of nature, cuisine, handicrafts, traditional healing, literature, building, and a variety of other categories which together encompass the entirety of the Dai heritage in the village. These categories were divided up amongst the older people of the village, who have embraced the project with the enthusiasm. Over the years they had come to feel that their cultural knowledge and their traditional ways were irrelevant to modern life; now their knowledge has been given value and recognition.

I arrived in the village early one sunny February morning. Around thirty of the village elders were gathered at the entrance of the village to welcome me and brief me on the project. The women were dressed in their beautiful pasin, while a few of the men wore their handsome Dai suits, with white turban around the head. One of the key leaders of the project is Mr. Kang Langshuai, 73 years old, who was a monk in the village temple for several years in the late 1940’s, and retains vital knowledge of the village’s rituals for conducting of ceremonies. He and other older members of the village are inscribing their knowledge in Dai script on paper they have made by hand in the traditional fashion from tree bark. Stacks of these beautifully written manuscripts were shown to me as their output to date.

We then walked through the village to one of its two temples. The main temple is a beautiful wooden temple in traditional Dai style, dating back several hundred years. The original wall murals have long since disappeared, but they have been replaced by new murals painted by a self-taught village artist. In front of the temple the villagers performed a variety of their traditional dances, accompanied by Dai musical instruments. At the conclusion of the morning’s program, we all repaired to a community center for a sumptuous repast of Dai dishes, accompanied by sticky rice and several delectable sweets made of sticky rice and cane sugar, steamed in banana leaves.


When I asked two of the leaders of the project what, in their opinion, are the essence features of Dai culture that clearly differentiate Dai people from other cultural groups, I was without hesitation given the response, “Our Buddhist heritage, and the respect between people that is embodied in our sense of courtesy and manners.”

The term “Dai” is officially used by the Chinese government to designate one of China’s 55 minority groups. The Dai live in a broad band, intermixed among other minority groups, across southern Yunnan, not far from the Lao and Burmese borders. But this broad designation does not give justice to the variations of Dai culture and language between different Dai groups. On the eastern side of the Dai region, in Xishuangbanna Prefecture close to the Mekong River, the Dai are called in their own language Dai Lue, and are basically the same as groups in northern Laos and Thailand that go by the name Tai Lue. In the far western portion of the region are the Dai of Dehong. In the middle are the Dai of Meng Lian, the site of the CHP project.


Meng Lian district is less accessible and less economically developed than other Dai areas, As a result Dai culture in this area remains more pristine, with less assimilation into the dominant Han culture. Curiously, it has also been less studied by academics than other Dai sub-cultures. From what I was able to ascertain, the Dai of Meng Lian regard themselves as very similar to the Shan people across the Burmese border in Chiang Tung (Kengtung), and Chiang Tung remains to this day a sort of cultural center for Dai people in Meng Lian. And of course, the Dai of Meng Lian share with their distant cousins, the Lao and the Thai, charm and a mellow way of life that is highly seductive to the visitor.

The project’s village documentation phase will soon be completed, leading to the next phase of translation of the entire document into Han Chinese, and publication of the work in bilingual Dai-Chinese version. Meanwhile, the project is giving a restored sense of pride to the village concerning its Dai heritage, and a sense of the importance of preserving this heritage for posterity.

But work in one village, no matter how enthusiastically carried out, does not save a culture from gradual extinction. CHP is gratified to find that the District government of Meng Lian has watched this project unfold with keen interest, and is now interested in working with CHP to replicate the work in other Dai villages and other minority groups within the district. As the project model unfolds in other villages, it will of course need to be adapted from the first pioneering Meng Ma project. Planning for spreading the work to other villages of Meng Lian will be next phase of CHP’s efforts in working with the Dai people.

CHP wishes to express its thanks to the James Thompson Foundation of Thailand and to the Australian government for making available financial grants to CHP which have permitted the project to proceed successfully.

(James Stent Director of CHP)

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)

http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

Volunteers Looking After the Wall

CHP: China Heritage Update 4 March 2006

In a remote corner of Funing District of Hebei Province, near the Liaoning border, lies the village of Dong Jia Kou, home to 122 families. Six hundred years ago, in the Ming Dynasty, the Great Wall was constructed close to this village. Four hundred years ago, the famous Ming Dynasty General Qi Jiguang ordered the strengthening of this section of the Wall. Experts are of the opinion that this Dong Jia Kou section of the Wall is a very representative Ming Dynasty section and moreover is in relatively good condition. The Dong Jia Kou villagers all believe that the maintenance and protection of this section of the Wall, for several tens of kilometers, has been the work of their ancestors.
What follows is the story of one of those villagers, Sun Zhenyuan. This story illustrates how CHP is able to leverage a very small amount of money to use local people in the countryside to protect cultural relics. Our hero, Sun, is 56 years old and in most ways lives a life no different from hundreds of millions of China’s other farmers. He makes a living from cultivating three mu of land, and supplements this by occasionally taking a few local products to market for sale. But in one respect he is very different from other farmers: his deep reverence for the Great Wall protection efforts of his ancestors has led him to devote all the time he has left over, after producing enough food for his family, to the ongoing task of looking after the Dong Jia Kou section of the Great Wall.


Sun Zhen Yuan was raised on village stories of the Great Wall. He does not remember how old he was the first time that he walked the entire length of the Dong Jia Kou section. Asked when he started to undertake Great Wall protection efforts, he replies, “I am not sure when that was, but from the time that I was a youth I have been climbing up to the Great Wall to look after it. A few decades ago, I saw a part of the Wall knocked down by a flock of sheep. The bricks of the Wall are a bit salty, so livestock like to lick them and over the course of time the animals scrambling over the Wall damages it. After realizing that, I began going to the Wall on a regular daily basis. Whenever he saw livestock climbing onto the Wall, Sun would take a staff or stone to shoo away the animals.

In subsequent years, people began coming to the Great Wall to catch scorpions to take to the market for sale. Sun said, “These people were disgusting and very difficult to get rid of. They would hide an iron rod in their sleeves. When no one was looking, they would use the rod to pry Great Wall bricks loose. If they found a scorpion, they would pry loose a whole bunch of bricks—bricks which were fired hundreds of years ago in the Ming Dynasty. Often I would get into arguments with these scorpion hunters.”

In those days Sun received no compensation for his daily patrol, involving several tens of kilometers of walking on the Great Wall. As a result, he gradually sunk into poverty as he neglected his agricultural work.

Three years ago, CHP came to know Sun Zhenyuan. We saw that he was a hero for his work on protecting the Great Wall, but even heroes need recognition, appreciation, and help, and the work was too much for this one man. As we watched the profile of Sun on the high peaks of the Dong Jia Kou area picking up the garbage on the Great Wall, an idea formed: with Sun as the core, CHP would organize a Great Wall Volunteer Group, with each volunteer looking after the Wall for half of each day. In compensation for the time taken away from agriculture, each volunteer would receive an annual subsidy of Y 500, with an additional annual supplement of Y100-500 as a reward, depending on the results of the work.

This idea was enthusiastically embraced by Sun and two of his friends, and also by the District government. The District officers promised that if the CHP program was successful in the first two years, thereafter the District government would take over responsibility for the program. This was exactly what CHP was looking for, and so after a bit of simple training, the program got under way, with three people dividing up the work so that the important parts of the Don Jia Kou section of the Wall were patrolled each day. A record was kept of the results of each day’s patrolling. Each month there would be a monthly summary report to CHP, either by telephone or by a personal CHP inspection. If anything untoward happened, the volunteers were to immediately notify both CHP and the district authorities.

The program turned out to be a great success, and after only six months, the District authorities assumed responsibility for funding and supervising the program—a year and a half earlier than they had promised! Even more exciting, other areas in the district started similar programs. The success was based on the example of Sun Zhenyuan, who inspired the local officials.

Today, the enthusiasm of Sun and his cohorts is even greater: “Now we have achieved some recognition and honor for our work, and some material compensation for our efforts.” The key is that they now feel that they have been employed by the government, and when they go on patrol they wear the Protection Officer badges, with their names and photos, so that people transgressing on the Wall can no longer ignore them.

When asked what are the greatest problems that he faces in protecting the Wall today, Sun responds, “The key problem is that there is insufficient education on the value of the Great Wall. The flocks of sheep around the Wall are now less of a problem than in times past, but there are more kids climbing the Wall in search of scorpions, and there are many more tourists from the city coming out to hike the Wall. The kids play hide and seek with us, and they can always outrun us, so they are difficult to deal with. Young people from the cities now like to come here to hike the Wall, which would be fine were it not for the fact that they like to pick up stones and bricks from the Wall, and wherever they stop for a rest they leave a mess. They have competitions to see who can throw the broken bricks furthest.

Sun has also proven his ability to consider the larger issues of Wall protection. To control the kids’ behavior, the key is to educate them on Wall protection. He has befriended the Principals of two of the schools in the vicinity, providing opportunities to speak with the school children. He tells the students that they can make a bit of money from catching scorpions, but they must weigh this against the destruction of the Wall their ancestors have been caring for over the generations. “Most of the kids get the message quickly enough. It is the hikers from the city who are a problem—they won’t listen to reason, and often speak to me roughly, so I respond in kind, as I have the law on my side. If they do not cease improper behavior on the Wall, I promptly notify the police and report them to the District authorities.

Speaking of the future, Sun expressed concern: protection of the Great Wall is a mammoth undertaking, and those who are committed are still small in number and the task of educating the public has not proceeded far enough. But what makes Sun happy is that his son has taken up the work, and in his free time from his farming he accompanies Sun on his patrols. Whenever we ask Sun for his recommendation, he always replies, “On TV get across the message that when you hike on the Great Wall, be careful to do no damage. It would also be good to give all Great Wall Protection Officers a standard uniform so that the we can be easily identified.”

The story of Sun Zhenyuan is one of many similar instances of how intervention by CHP has brought relief to an endangered heritage site. Using a small amount of money, CHP has mobilized dedicated local people to protect their heritage at a grassroots level. Once the program is up and running on a sustainable basis, CHP generally turns it over to local government for ongoing support and replication in other locations. This has proven to be a very successful model, and works well because of CHP’s ability to communicate with and understand the needs of both farmers and officials equally well. Increased donations in support of CHP in the future will enable CHP to undertake a greatly expanded number of these grassroots protection activities.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)

http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

Sino-Italian Agreement on Prevention of Cultural Heritage Theft

CHP: China Heritage Update 3 February 2006

On the 20^th of January, representatives of the Italian and Chinese governments signed a bilateral Agreement to prevent the illegal movement, theft and illicit excavation of cultural artifacts. In this Agreement, the two governments highlighted the grave threat that these illegal activities already present to the cultural heritage of mankind. The two countries agreed to commence cooperation on the basis of each country’s laws and their obligations and responsibilities under international treaties, and to undertake cooperative, defensive, and forceful measures to counteract illegal activities in the cultural sphere.

Implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention and 1995 UNIDROIT Convention has been made an essential part of the two countries’ undertaking under the terms of the Agreement. The Agreement further stresses the importance of timely exchange of information, including specific clauses of the law and policies of relevant departments of the governments of the two countries, data bases on cultural artifact smuggling suppression, the status of issuance of licenses for export of cultural artifacts, the status of underground and excavated heritage, the status of commerce in cultural artifacts, and developments in illegal trafficking.

The two countries stressed increasing cooperation, raising awareness of museums and other cultural organizations about the harm done by illegal trafficking in cultural antiquities; coordinating cultural relations with third countries; implementing cooperation with organizations related to international conventions, and ending contact with any groups that are engaged in illegal trafficking of antiquities.

As two countries that have made major contributions to human civilization, in signing this Agreement, China and Italy are demonstrating that they have the same viewpoint and that their cooperation is highly effective. Many years ago China and the U. S. started to investigate the signing of a similar agreement. But, facing the pressure of the antique dealers and the antique collectors, American policy makers showed vacillation and indecision, and a lack of responsibility towards the cultural heritage of mankind. We maintain that in order to get American policy makers to change their position, first it is necessary to get the American public to understand the threat to mankind’s cultural heritage that theft, illegal excavation, and illegal trafficking in antiquities already poses. American cultural institutions take responsibility in this area.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)

http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

Second Saturday of June to Be “Cultural Heritage Day”

CHP: China Heritage Update 11 Jan 2006

In September of last year we reported that China hoped to establish an annual “Cultural Heritage Day” to restore our confidence in the future of our vanishing cultural heritage. Now this hoped for event has occurred: the national government recently announced that, starting this year, the second Saturday of June every year would be national “Cultural Heritage Day”. The only difference with our earlier report is that this day is not to be celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month (Duan Wu Jie), but instead is for no special reason to be celebrated on the second Saturday of June. This is perhaps to give the celebration of this day a broader audience.


In its establishment of “Cultural Heritage Day”, the government expressed its dissatisfaction with the present state of cultural heritage conservation. The government feels that in many old districts of cities, in old buildings, and in archaeological sites, there has been much destruction, illegal transfer of cultural artifacts, theft of tombs, and smuggling of antiquities; moreover, there has been no effective suppression of these illegal activities, as a result of which many cultural treasures of the country have disappeared from China, and the special character of ethnic and regional cultures has been lost at an ever increasing rate.


In an effort to halt this destruction of cultural heritage, every department of the central government and all local governments have been called upon to put in place systems for the protection of cultural heritage. In addition, the government has called for a system of regular reporting on the protection of cultural heritage, for consultation with cultural experts, and for making cultural heritage protection more scientific and more popularly based.


In order to strengthen popular consciousness of cultural heritage protection, China now has a “Cultural Heritage Day”, a “Cultural Heritage Logo”(see below), and a “Cultural Heritage Protection Song”. Although the state of cultural heritage protection today remains abysmal, we nonetheless that the situation will improve, and that the rate of improvement depends on our efforts.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)
http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

CHP Cracks Smuggling Case

CHP: China Heritage Update 2 Dec 2005

Last month, a middle level court in Jin Hua City, Zhejiang Province, began to pass sentence in the case of the Canadian Zhu Chunlin, and the Chinese Zhu Xiaogang, Yu Yanjun, Yu Lichun, Chen Zhigen, and Cao Guangjun, who are accused of smuggling and reselling at a profit 2925 fossil pieces.

This gang was formed is 2003. In April and October of that year, Zhu Chunlin and Zhu Xiaogang purchased from Yu Yanjun and Yu Lichun fossils that they had illegally collected, and in December of that year concealed them for smuggling to America in a container packed with carved tree stumps and exotic eroded stones.

In April of 2004, Zhu Chunlin and the others one after another bought up a lot of these fossils and put them in Chen Zhigen’s workshop for carving of tree stumps and awaited an opportunity to get them out of the country. Later that year, on 1 November, Chen Zhigen and the rest of them, as they were smuggling them out in a shipping container, the fossils were detected by Jin Hua customs officials. Another eight items that they attempted to export through the postal system were seized by Shanghai customs officials.

In September of the same year, Yu Yanjun carried fossils that he had illegally acquired and sold them. Eighty-one of these fossils were detected by Shanghai customs authorities as the smugglers mailed them through the postal system, but the remainder evaded detection and were mailed out of the country.

According to Chinese law, selling of the types of fossils that Zhu and his associates were handling is a criminal offense, the maximum penalty for which is ten years prison sentence; for the smuggling of these fossils, the maximum sentence is the death penalty.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center’s “hotline” telephone service played a role in breaking this case, supplying details of the case and some legal advice. The hotline service was put in place two years ago, financed by a grant of funds from the Jim Thompson Foundation of Thailand, and the role the hot line and CHP’s training played in breaking this case is illustrative of the good use which the public makes of this hot line service of our Center.

CHP’s training in the Shanghai and Zhejiang areas has been particularly effective. CHP has conducted more than ten different training sessions in these two areas, with participation by more than 2,000 people, including students, neighborhood committees, government officials, police, and customs officials. As a result of these training sessions, there consciousness of cultural heritage protection has been raised, and they are able to identify activities that are destructive of cultural heritage. Many people now know about the CHP hotline service, and have noted down both the telephone number and the email address.

In the Zhu Chunlin case, the son of a worker in Chen Zhigen’s workshop had joined a CHP training session. Starting in January of 2004, they often contacted us by hot line telephone to report suspicious activities going on in the workshop. In the latter part of April of that year, as the illegal fossils were concealed in the workshop, they started to keep in daily contact with us, calling from safe places where they would not be exposed to possible retribution. On the one hand we advised them of precautions to ensure their safety, and one the other told them to keep gathering evidence of the smuggling. At the same time, we informed the police and notified a few trustworthy people in positions of authority so that they could keep an eye on the development of the case, until finally the arrests were made.

As for the fossils detected in the postal system, it had happened that CHP had been invited to conduct training by a Shanghai neighborhood committee. Participating in this session were a number of neighborhood organizations, including representatives of the local post office. Afterwards, the CHP hotline number was posted on the wall in the post office. When the postal officers noted these fossils being mailed to America, they tried calling the number. We told them to delay posting the materials, and immediately informed customs officers, who investigated and apprehended the culprits.

We shall be following the case closely to see what verdict is rendered and sentence passed by the court.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)
http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org

What Are We Doing To Preserve The Old City?

CHP: China Heritage Update 13 Nov 2005

As a non-governmental organization that has been officially registered and been licensed to operate, our work rests on the basis of law, and on the legally constituted plans of the government for heritage protection. With regard to the protection of the old city of Beijing, our work is based on the national level “Cultural Heritage Protection Law” and the “Urban Planning Law”, plus the Beijing City level “The Historical and Cultural City Act” and the various plans of different periods for the protection of the old city.

We believe that there are two types of activities for the protection of the Old City of Beijing—stopping destruction and increasing protection. At the present time the more important of the two is the stopping of destruction. People and activities destroying the old city are numerous. The people undertaking the destruction are extremely powerful and privileged. Whether because of personal gain or because of ignorance, they are doing a lot to ruin the old city. Particularly destructive is the construction of buildings that destroy the traditional face of the old city.

Given the present political system and legal environment, we do not yet have the capability to investigate the perpetrators of this destruction, who should bear responsibility under the law. But we do have a simple and straightforward method, which is to tell the residents of Beijing, visitors, and all who are concerned with the protection of the city, who it is that is wrecking this destruction and how they do it.

To protect the old city we are now undertaking a work entitled “What is destroying Old Beijing: the top 100 offending buildings”. On the basis of the fundamental requirements of the protection plans of different periods, we are methodically investigating and assessing all the buildings that are destroying the traditional appearance of the old city, and from amongst all of them we shall choose the worst 100. For each of these top offenders, we shall reveal the name of the building, its location, accompanied by a photo, and an explanation of the reason why it made the “top 100”, and to the best of our ability we shall attempt to reveal the name of the developer and architect, and the name of the individual or unit that approved the building’s construction. This project will be made into an electronic document and made public on our web site, and will make it available without cost to other web sites for their use as well. Based on public feedback, we shall revise the document and publish it in print form. We hope that the smooth execution of this project will move the people of Beijing to exert pressure on the individuals who are destroying the old city of Beijing, and enable them to have some restraining influence over their activities.

In the execution of this project, we have encountered some difficulties. The owners of buildings that exceed Beijing height restrictions refuse to give us accurate information on the height of their buildings. In our surveying of the height of these buildings, we are now using some rather out of date methods, causing the work to proceed too slowly. We hope that perhaps some of you may be able to assist us in moving this project forward.

Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center (CHP)
http://www.bjchp.org

Suite 2308, Building 5
East Zone 1, Tiantong Garden,
Dongxiaokou Town, Changping District,
Beijing, 102218, China
Telephone: +86 10 61768040, +86 13366082836
Email: information@bjchp.org