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City's search for profit puts province's precious Buddhist heritage at risk
By Wu Jiayin |
September 1, 2009, Tuesday
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Print Edition
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The 1,500-year-old Buddhist caves in Shanxi Province, one of the world's precious heritages, are being encroached on by the surrounding expanding commercial complex.
This is another typical case in which certain local governments were blindly seeking short-term profits regardless of the possible destruction of historic remains.
The Yungang Grottoes, with their 252 caves and 51,000 statues, represent the outstanding achievement of Buddhist cave art in China in the 5th and 6th centuries.
Thanks to their historic value, they were added to the UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2001 and thus should be carefully preserved.
However, Datong City, where the Yungang Grottoes are situated, turned the area into a construction site early this year.
According to a report by www.chinanews.com.cn on August 18, the construction project involved the building of several avenues toward the Yungang Grottoes, an old-style looking commercial street and a lake right in front of the grottoes.
The budget for the whole project was nearly 1.7 billion yuan (US$250 million).
Local officials said they were trying to restore the original appearance of the area in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), during which period the grottoes were constructed.
What is ridiculous is that as they found limited information on the architectural styles in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the officials then decided to build the commercial street according to the architectural styles of Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Obviously, to those officials, the only objective of the new construction project was to make more profit.
As one of the people in charge of the project said, visitors used to spend only an hour or so to tour the Yungang Grottoes, and they were expected to spend at least half a day to tour the whole area once the project is completed.
However, as all the construction is within the conservation area, the project is actually illegal as it breaks China's promise to UNESCO to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the property when Yungang Grottoes was added to the World Heritage list.
The good news is that the State Administration of Cultural Heritage stopped the project recently and ordered the city to demolish all the illegal construction.
More lessons
There were plenty lessons that Datong City should have learned from.
Take Wutai Mountain, also in Shanxi Province.
The mountain was finally added to the UNESCO's World Heritage list this June after several years were spent in pulling down numerous commercial buildings on the mountain at a cost of no less than one billion yuan.
Also this June, the Elbe Valley in Dresden, Germany, was removed from UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites because a bridge the city is building across the valley is said to have destroyed the "universal value" of the area.
Both cases gave a good warning to Datong City against construction at the Yungang Grottoes, which could have resulted in the removal of the area from the World Heritage list.
In this case, the shortsightedness of the local government is surely to blame, but relevant supervision departments can't be excused their dereliction of duty either.
The Oriental Morning Post reported on August 25 that the State Administration of Cultural Heritage organized two inspection tours in Datong City early this year, just about the same time the project began.
Why didn't they stop the project then?
No doubt, the illegal construction around the Yungang Grottoes should be demolished. But who should pay for the part of the huge investment already wasted?
This is another typical case in which certain local governments were blindly seeking short-term profits regardless of the possible destruction of historic remains.
The Yungang Grottoes, with their 252 caves and 51,000 statues, represent the outstanding achievement of Buddhist cave art in China in the 5th and 6th centuries.
Thanks to their historic value, they were added to the UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2001 and thus should be carefully preserved.
However, Datong City, where the Yungang Grottoes are situated, turned the area into a construction site early this year.
According to a report by www.chinanews.com.cn on August 18, the construction project involved the building of several avenues toward the Yungang Grottoes, an old-style looking commercial street and a lake right in front of the grottoes.
The budget for the whole project was nearly 1.7 billion yuan (US$250 million).
Local officials said they were trying to restore the original appearance of the area in the Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), during which period the grottoes were constructed.
What is ridiculous is that as they found limited information on the architectural styles in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the officials then decided to build the commercial street according to the architectural styles of Song Dynasty (960-1279).
Obviously, to those officials, the only objective of the new construction project was to make more profit.
As one of the people in charge of the project said, visitors used to spend only an hour or so to tour the Yungang Grottoes, and they were expected to spend at least half a day to tour the whole area once the project is completed.
However, as all the construction is within the conservation area, the project is actually illegal as it breaks China's promise to UNESCO to preserve the authenticity and integrity of the property when Yungang Grottoes was added to the World Heritage list.
The good news is that the State Administration of Cultural Heritage stopped the project recently and ordered the city to demolish all the illegal construction.
More lessons
There were plenty lessons that Datong City should have learned from.
Take Wutai Mountain, also in Shanxi Province.
The mountain was finally added to the UNESCO's World Heritage list this June after several years were spent in pulling down numerous commercial buildings on the mountain at a cost of no less than one billion yuan.
Also this June, the Elbe Valley in Dresden, Germany, was removed from UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites because a bridge the city is building across the valley is said to have destroyed the "universal value" of the area.
Both cases gave a good warning to Datong City against construction at the Yungang Grottoes, which could have resulted in the removal of the area from the World Heritage list.
In this case, the shortsightedness of the local government is surely to blame, but relevant supervision departments can't be excused their dereliction of duty either.
The Oriental Morning Post reported on August 25 that the State Administration of Cultural Heritage organized two inspection tours in Datong City early this year, just about the same time the project began.
Why didn't they stop the project then?
No doubt, the illegal construction around the Yungang Grottoes should be demolished. But who should pay for the part of the huge investment already wasted?
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