Film studio opens replica of Chinese palace razed in 19th century, but some prefer the ruins

BEIJING – China already has its own copies of London's Tower Bridge and the Eiffel Tower. Now a life-sized model by a film studio of one of the country's own historical attractions — the Old Summer Palace — has ruffled the bosses of the original garden of emperors.
Hengdian Studios in Zhejiang province is building a 30 billion yuan ($5 billion) film set of the 3.5-square-kilometer (1.35-square-mile) palace grounds in Beijing before they were razed and left in ruins by foreign forces more than 150 years ago.

While the overseers of the original site have belittled the new one as a sell-out to tourism, it has won praise from some historians for preserving China's heritage.

Part theme park, part film set, the still-under-construction attraction opened to the public on Sunday with an entrance fee of 280 yuan ($46). It is slated to be finished next year by Hengdian, one of the world's largest film studios, which already has replicas of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Gate.

Performers in dynastic costumes carrying a gong marched underneath a traditional Chinese gate that opened on to a walkway with red buildings as visitors looked on. One employee was dressed as an emperor. Elsewhere, people rested and chatted in pavilions by the water. From a higher vantage point, they took photos in front of a view of buildings standing in rows with gray roofs with flying eaves, white walls and red pillars.

The attraction joins the ranks of other famous landmarks that have appeared in China. The eastern city of Suzhou has built bridges to look like the Tower Bridge and Sydney Harbour Bridge, among others. In nearby Hangzhou city, there are replicas of Paris's Eiffel Tower and the Champs Elysees. Last year, a copy of the Great Sphinx of Giza in Hebei province built by a film company raised the ire of the Egyptian government.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported last month that the Old Summer Palace's administrative office said the cultural heritage site was unique and could not be replicated, and that the site was prepared to take legal action if its intellectual property rights were violated. It wasn't clear what rights it was referring to, and the office declined to comment.

Xu Xinming, chief lawyer at the China Intellectual Property Lawyers association, which offers legal advice, said China's intellectual property law only covers 50 years from when a work has been completed, but in any case "the original Old Summer Palace has been destroyed and the replica has nothing to do with intellectual property rights."

The palace replica has raised a debate within China about the merits of the project, with Xinhua saying that many have accused it of "bastardizing a site associated with patriotism."

French and British troops burned down the Old Summer Palace in 1860. China's Communist Party-led government considers its ruins a remembrance of historical humiliation at the hands of foreign forces, and a sign of how the country has moved on under the party's rule.

The man running the replica project, Xu Wenrong, the retired chairman of Hengdian Group, dismissed the criticisms at a news conference Saturday.

The Chinese government has never agreed to rebuild the site because its destruction is a "national shame," said Xu. "But generations of people have all heard about the garden, they haven't been there and they expect it to be rebuilt."

He said it was natural to charge an entrance fee to an attraction but they had built the replica "for the benefit of the people and future generations" rather than to make money.

He said the construction was based on the original design plans for the Old Summer Palace, which was built beginning in the 18th century and given as a gift by Emperor Kangxi to his son. Subsequent emperors also used and expanded the imperial gardens and the site became China's second political center after the Forbidden City.

A press officer from Beijing's cultural relics bureau said the new site had been built for the purposes of filmmaking and tourism. "It's fully commercial and can hardly be regarded as a decent replica because it's not situated within the Old Summer Palace, either," said the press officer, who would only give his surname, Yin.

Wang Daocheng, a former professor at Renmin University's Qing History Institute, said he had no problem with Hengdian building a replica, and that the two sites could be complementary.

"The Old Summer Palace represents the essence of Chinese traditional culture. Why can't we rebuild it?" he said. "There is nothing left in the Old Summer Palace apart from ruins, and if people can't see anything about the glorious architecture and gardens, then how can you educate the public?"

On a warm day last week, tourists thronged the paths in the original site in north Beijing, filled with lakes framed by thick rows of bright flowers and overhanging trees. In the eastern part of the park, they paid 15 yuan ($2.50) extra to visit the most visible ruins, consisting of big pieces of light gray rubble and a handful of Roman columns.

Businessman Liu Yaming, 37, using a selfie stick to take a photo of himself among the ruins, said rebuilding the site showed "a kind of ignorance of our national humiliation."

"Some things just can't be rebuilt once they are gone," he said. "As a historical site, we'd better give it the respect it deserves."