China’s ‘ghost town’ G20 venue: heightened security leads to empty streets, closed shops and residents on holiday

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Chinese security guards open a gate leading to the G20 media centre in Hangzhou on Saturday, which begins on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Published: 3:55pm, 3 Sep 2016Updated: 11:35am, 6 Jul 2017

With rows of locked shops, closed restaurants and nearly empty streets, the usually bustling area around West Lake, Hangzhou’s most popular tourist district, now looks a bit like a ghost town.

A lone citizen walks across a stone bridge beside a lake – an area that would normally be crowded with sightseers, in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, ahead of the G20 summit. Photo: Xinhua

The lakeside area – along with other parts of the city where the global leaders will stay or visit – has been closed off to the public, surrounded by roadblocks that are heavily guarded by police as the Chinese government prepares to host the Group of 20 summit.

It is common practice around the world for countries hosting big events to beef up security and China has good reason to be vigilant right now because a suicide blast took place at the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan last Tuesday.

However, many measures in Hangzhou have gone far beyond normal levels of caution.

It’s just too much trouble to bring all the food materials through the security check every day, and there are not many customers now anyway

Hangzhou restaurant manager

By banning all civil society activities in the city, the G20 in China lacks the usual flavour associated with an international forum held to discuss global issues: no gay or lesbian rights group demonstrators, no radical environmentalist protests – and no monks praying for world peace.