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China may open new sections of the Great Wall
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BEIJING, CHINA – Three new sections of the Great Wall of China may be opened, state media reported Tuesday.
A proposal recently released by the Beijing municipal administration of cultural heritage said it will open three new areas totaling 50km, the China Daily said.
While the new locations haven’t been announced two probable candidates are Huanghuacheng and Qinglongxia in Beijing’s Huairou district, a spokesperson for the city said.
Expanding the Great Wall is part of the government’s conservation project. Other historic sites that are benefiting from government funding include the Ming Tombs, the Old Summer Palace and the Fragrant Hills.
The cultural authority said that opening new sections of China’s most famous tourist destination would help crack down on campers who illegally break into closed areas of the Great Wall.
“The ‘wild wall’ with little supervision remains ecologically fragile when visitors approach it. That’s why the administration hopes to conserve them and make them suitable for tourism,” Wang Yuwei, director of the heritage protection division of the administration, was quoted by the paper as saying.
Some foreign residents who live in Beijing criticized the plan. While they acknowledged that it would be an economic development engine for the surrounding communities, they said restoring the wall would make it less historic.
“The most beautiful parts of it are the unrestored parts of the wall. I would hate to see a lot of money go into it and then all of these unrestored places become restored. You will ruin the natural character of the wall,” Aaron Davis, a landscape architect from Florida, said.
“Do they really need more tourists?” Michele Hearty, an attorney from London, said. “I don’t think so.”
Beijing has nearly 530 km of the Great Wall. Four sections, totaling 30 km, are currently open to visitors and attract six million visitors per year. The sites are named Badaling, Mutianyu, Simatai and Juyongguan.
U.S. President Barack Obama, currently in China for meetings with government leaders, will visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall on Wednesday, his last day in the country.
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