Beijing unveils grand plan to protect old town, as China’s capital looks for a new landscape
- China has unveiled a blueprint to preserve what is left of its historic capital city’s inner sanctum, but mainly for central government apparatus
- Dongcheng and Xicheng will have historical sites, with the ultimate aim to create a ‘flat and open’ view of the old town, according to the plan.
Beijing’s municipal government has unveiled a grand blueprint to redefine the inner city of the Chinese capital by 2035, after decades in which it was ravaged by demolition and development.
The detailed design was revealed on Monday and is now soliciting responses over a 30-day period. It says it seeks to preserve as much history as possible and to serve primarily the functioning of the central government apparatus.
The blueprint covers two districts in Central Beijing spanning an area of 92.5 sq km: Dongcheng and Xicheng, both key to China’s centre of politics, culture and international diplomacy.
It is part of a broader masterplan covering the whole of Beijing from 2016 to 2035 that seeks to achieve more macro aims, such as keeping the population under 23 million in 2020 and maintaining that level for a long time. This revamp has already seen the Beijing municipal government kicked out of the Forbidden City to a completely new site about 30 kilometres away, in the Tongzhou district.
Much of Central Beijing’s old structures, including its city wall, were torn down in the early years of Communist rule. The narrow alleyways that formed the residential hutong districts were bulldozed amid urbanisation in the 1990s and early-2000s. The new plan seeks to preserve what is left.