‘Waste of money’ giant statue of Chinese general to be moved at cost of US$23.8 million
- Monument to Guan Yu in Jingzhou, Hubei province is to be relocated to a new site just 8km away in the same city
- Made of bronze, the mammoth creation stands 58 metres tall and weighs close to 1,200 tonnes
A giant statue of a second-century general erected as a tourist attraction in central China four years ago is to be relocated at a cost of 155 million yuan (US$23.8 million), after an inquiry found it to be a waste of money, according to local media reports.
The monument to Guan Yu, a military leader during the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) who was later deified, opened to the public in Guanyi Park in Jingzhou, Hubei province in 2016. Made of bronze, the mammoth creation stands 58 metres (190 feet) tall and weighs close to 1,200 tonnes. It took three years to build and cost 173 million yuan.
A report by China’s state broadcaster CCTV this week quoted a senior official from the Jingzhou tourism department as saying the statue was built at a time when Chinese cities were competing to create tourist attractions that could be included in Guinness World Records.
But despite its lofty ambitions, the monument soon fell foul of the authorities.
On Tuesday, the Hubei government said the relocation project would begin soon, Shanghai-based news website ThePaper reported.
Its new home will be just 8km (five miles) away in Dianjiangtai, which is said to be where Guan Yu once drilled his troops. He was killed in battle while trying to defend Jingzhou and lost the city to his enemies.
Zhou Xuanyi, a professor at Wuhan University, decried the relocation plan as a waste of money.
“If Guan Yu had all this money, he wouldn’t have lost Jingzhou,” he said on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.
