Unmarked garden quarters of China's last emperor Puyi may get its place in history

The former residence of China’s last emperor, where he lived and worked as a gardener towards the end of his life, has become a storage room – without any marking of its historic importance.

However, that may change if a proposal by a Beijing policymaker gains traction.

Wan Jianzhong, a member of the municipal Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, in an interview with journalists broached the idea of exhibiting Aisin-Gioro Puyi’s life at the gardens, the Beijing Morning Post reports.

Puyi, the Xuantong Emperor, abdicated the throne in 1912 and effectively ended 2,000 years of imperial rule, leading to a new revolutionary government, and later, the founding of the Communist Party.

Puyi spent most of his life either under house arrest at the imperial palace, living in exile, being restored briefly to power by pro-imperial forces or languishing in jail under communist rule.

After Mao Zedong declared the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Puyi – who symbolised the imperial life that the party so derided – spent 10 years at the Fushun War Criminals Management Centre in Liaoning province where he was forced to undergo ideological reforms.