Yuanmingyuan operator calls replica project illegal

The Hengdian Yuanmingyuan replica will infringe the intellectual property rights of the ancient imperial garden in Beijing, the garden's official management organization said yesterday at a press conference in Beijing, a newspaper reported today.

The Yuanmingyuan Management Department will file a lawsuit against Hengdian Group if they use the garden's name on the replica, Beijing News reported, citing Zong Tianliang, the spokesman of the department.

Privately owned Hengdian Group plans to collect 20 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion) to build a more than 6,000-hectare replica of Yuanmingyuan this year near its Hengdian World Studio in Zhejiang Province.

Construction on the original Yuanmingyuan, known as the "Versailles of the East," began in 1709 and was finished in 1744.

The garden was burned down by British and French troops in 1860, then sacked and burned down again after partial restoration in 1900 when the Eight-Power Allied Forces troops sent by Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Tsarist Russia, Japan, Italy and Austria, occupied Beijing.

The Yuanmingyuan management department has reported Hengdian Group's plan to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, Zong said.

The department has always worked hard to protect the intellectual property rights of the ancient garden, Zong added.

Hengdian Group has registered the "Hengdian Yuanmingyuan" as its trademarks, so it "has no business with the ancient Yuanmingyuan," the report said, citing a response from Hengdian.

It will be impossible for the group to recreate the ancient garden because more than 30 percent of the garden's material, data and information were destroyed, Zong told the newspaper.

There was only one Yuanmingyuan in the world, so it is meaningless to build a replica, he added.

The Hengdian Group plans to finish the replica and open it to the public in 2013, according to Xu Wenrong, the 72-year-old founder of the group and "chief commander" of the project, said in Beijing on February 19 to launch the project.

The project has received 1.5 billion yuan in investments and 124 million yuan in donations, a previous report from China News Service said.

More donations will be raised in Britain, France and other nations among the Eight-Power Allied Forces troops, which burnt and looted Yuanmingyuan Garden in 1900, according to the China News report.