The
managers of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, looted by British and French
troops in the 19th century, are threatening legal action over a Chinese movie
studio's sprawling $5 billion replica, state media said.
In 2007, Hengdian World Studios, the
world's largest outdoor film studio, announced it planned to build a
multi-billion-dollar replica of Beijing's Old Summer Palace at its headquarters
some 1,500 kilometres south of the Chinese capital.
The 18th-century original in
Beijing's northwest served as a retreat for China's emperors, with lavish
gardens, fountains and pavilions, but was pillaged by British and French troops
in 1860 during the Second Opium War.
The
event has long been regarded as one of the most humiliating episodes of Chinese
history, and Communist authorities stress it as an example of the country's
victimisation by foreign powers.
Parts
of the new version are finally scheduled to open next month, but the project
has been sharply criticised by the stewards of the former imperial complex, who
said that the 400-hectare (990-acre) site is "unique and cannot be
replicated".
"The
construction and development of the site should be planned by authoritative
national organisations, and any replication of it should reach certain
standards," the palace's administrative office told China's official
Xinhua news agency Sunday.
Xinhua
said potential legal action centred on intellectual property rights, without
giving details.
Hengdian
founder Xu Wenrong defended the project, telling the agency that it was an
effort to educate China's younger generation about China's past rather than
simply build a reproduction of the site.
Hengdian
World Studios has already built a full-scale replica of Beijing's Forbidden
City. Yet the Old Summer Palace, or Yuanmingyuan, project has attracted
controversy due to its place in Chinese history.
The
destruction was in response to China's capture, torture and killing of members
of a British and French delegation.
Beijing
has waged a persistent campaign to retrieve 1.5 million relics it estimates
were taken from the imperial complex at the time.
-
'Written in blood' -
When
the film studio announced the project in 2007, experts and others were sharply
critical, arguing the money would be better spent preserving surviving cultural
relics than recreating long-lost ones.
"The
replica is unnecessary because the Yuanmingyuan was destroyed by the Allied
Forces and the present day ruins serve as a testimony to that period of humiliating
history," cultural relics expert Ruan Yisan had told Xinhua.
In
the wake of the latest row, some in China rallied to defend the movie studio,
arguing that the project will strengthen public understanding of China's
history.
"The
Old Summer Palace was built at the cost of the whole nation but open to the
royal family only; if the recreation in the movie town opens to the public, it
will help more people know about our history and engage with the past,"
said Yang Jianhua, a researcher at Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences,
according to the China Daily.
On
China's popular online social networks, some users called the Old Summer
Palace's claims laughable.
"Historical
relics have no 'intellectual property' rights," wrote one user of Sina
Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, on Monday. "If you carve a statue of
Confucius, Washington, or any other figure from hundreds or thousands of years
ago, is that a violation of their rights?"
Others
called for the new project to be halted.
"I think they shouldn't rebuild
it," a Sina Weibo user wrote. "That history is written in blood. A
dilapidated Yuanmingyuan is better able to remind us of that humiliating
chapter of history."
Photo Credit: Shutter Stock
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