Will this illegal golf course be the centre of China’s next political storm?

Officials overseeing Yunnan conservation area singled out for allowing development to continue despite long-standing ban

Case part of annual drive to force local compliance with central government orders

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Staff at the illegal golf course in the Dianchi Lake conservation area planted trees to try to remedy the situation. Photo: Sohu

Published: 9:08pm, 8 May 2021Updated: 9:51pm, 8 May 2021

Environmental authorities and state media in China have singled out local officials who “turned a blind eye” to an illegal golf course and villas in a conservation area, hammering home demands to comply with central government orders.

The accusations are similar to those unleashed during a political storm in 2018 when Beijing punished legions of officials for ignoring President Xi Jinping’s orders to remove illegal villas in a Shaanxi conservation area.

Inspectors from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment said the golf course had been in operation illegally in the Dianchi Lake conservation area in Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan since 2010, despite the central government banning such developments six years earlier, online news service The Paper reported on Friday.

The report said people were seen playing golf on the course when inspectors visited on April 14 and course staff had tried to cover up the damage by planting trees and tree branches.

Inspectors also discovered that more than 1,000 houses had been built illegally in the area over the past six years, the report said.

On Friday, state news agency Xinhua attacked the officials in charge, questioning why the local authorities had ignored a central government order.