The 13-year-old Epang Palace scenic site in Xi'an of Shaanxi Province that the local government plans to demolish Photo: CFP

The local government of Xi'an in China's northwestern Shaanxi Province has again become the center of public attention for its controversial handling of how to balance cultural heritage protection and tourism development. Late last month it provoked critics with a plan to build a 38 billion yuan ($6.20 billion) new Epang Palace scenic spot.

Demolish and rebuild

Construction on the Epang Palace complex began in 212BC for Qin Shihuang, China's first emperor since unification, but it was actually never completed due to the chaos and uprisings of the later period of the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), according to Chinese archeological findings. The historical site, near Epang village in western Xi'an, was listed as a national-level major historical and cultural site in 1961.

According to the plan, a total of 38 billion yuan, co-funded by the local government and a property developer in Beijing, will be invested into the project called Epang Palace Cultural and Tourism Industrial Base. Plans include a series of museums, art centers and cultural communication centers.

Adding to people's concern is the local government's plan to demolish the original Epang Palace scenic site, which is only 200 meters from the real relic site and was built just 13 years ago at a cost of over 200 million yuan at that time. That worry is further magnified by the obvious commercial nature of the scheme planned in the name of culture.

According to officials, removal of the 13-year-old scenic site is justified because of its inappropriate construction, which now poses threats to the real site, and because the site has a long track record of business losses.

But here begs the question: how will authorities make sure another tourism project works, having seen the previous one fail?

Ancient city at a loss

This latest "Epang Palace incident" adds to a list of disputed relic-themed tourism development projects in Xi'an in recent years. With a total history of 6,000 years and 1,200 years as the capital of 13 dynasties, the city of Xi'an boasts vast cultural heritage resources.

But it seems that few of these ­projects have survived to set an exemplary model in modern days. Having withstood the tortures of time for centuries, it seems that most of the ruins of these cultural relics face the reality of being "protected" in such a way that their authentic cultural essence will be erased.

In April, the Xingjiao Temple in the southern part of Xi'an, which has a history of over 1,300 years and is known for preserving the relics of Xuanzang (of Journey to the West fame), caused a big stir around the country. When applying for the temple to become a world heritage site (now a profitable brand for domestic cities to strive for), the local government decided to demolish all other buildings at the site except a five-storied Buddhist pagoda since it was the only one listed on the application.

As debate about the demolition escalated, the government's overall plan about the temple surfaced: it will be another tourism project under the name of the historic site. The information on the government website of the Chang'an District (where the temple lies) showed that the whole project is to incorporate vacation tourism, cultural and religious experiences and will cost 215 million yuan. It is to be completed by 2014.

According to Zeng Yizhi, a member of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, the uncontrollable impulse by local governments to repeat the vicious cycle of demolishing, building artificial landscapes and re-demolishing if the project doesn't show a profit, stems from their wrong attitudes toward cultural relics. "The most valuable aspect of these cultural relics is their public interest, not commercial interests," Zeng told the Global Times.

"Cultural relics are a historic heritage left for the country, and those responsible for protecting them should only be related departments within the government, not those in charge of investment or growth," said Xie Chensheng, a former consultant for the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, implicating the undue economic considerations given by the local government in the protection of cultural relics in Xi'an.

Infectious idea

Unfortunately, local governments holding such thoughts are not a few and the wave of developing tourism under the pretense of culture is sweeping the country.

Statistics collected by Wu Bihu, a professor at the college of urban and environmental sciences of the Peking University, state that over 30 cities in China are now or are planning to rebuild and renovate ancient sites.

Gripped by the thought of development first, a group of real historic sites are being demolished to make way for their newer and prettier counterfeits to attract more visitors. "Tourism development has caused severe damage to ancient relics and towns around the country," said Zeng, "for example, Lijiang ancient town (or Dayan town in southwestern Yunnan Province, which was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1997) has been warned by the World Heritage Centre many times in recent years about the destruction of its original state."

"When I visited there 15 years ago, I could still see Naxi people's living conditions, with women working outside and their husbands taking care of babies at home and chatting with each other. Now this kind of folk culture has disappeared and is substituted by cafes, bars and various handicraft stores," Zeng introduced.

And in Taiyuan of central Shanxi Province, the new vice mayor of the city, Geng Yanbo, is planning to develop part of the city's ancient sites such as Jinyang ancient town in the way he did in Datong (a northern Shanxi city where Geng was mayor for five years), which emphasized cultural relic-themed tourism development.

As the capital of Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534), Datong has more than 280 ancient sites and relics including the famous Yungang Grottoes (a World Heritage Site since 2007). With Geng as its mayor, Datong experienced an impressive city-rebuilding movement during which most of the ancient sites were removed and rebuilt with modern materials.

"Even the thousand-year-old wheel marks at the grottoes were destroyed and replaced by ground tiles," said Zeng, "the whole ancient Datong city was destroyed."

Still, Geng's aggressive move in Datong won approval with the locals who believed their lives improved as more visitors came to the city.

Can a balance be struck between the protection of cultural relics and the economic development derived from them? "They are not contradictory, the public and industrial functions undertaken by cultural resources can be mutually stimulating," said Mao Jianguo, a cultural critic.

"But cultural protection should always take precedence over economic returns. How can a project in the name of cultural relics be attractive if it loses its sense of culture, or its soul?" said Mao.