China’s government says two imposing tourist attractions are ‘vain and wasteful’ and must be rectified
- Gigantic Guan Yu statue ‘ruined the character and culture of Jingzhou’, China’s housing ministry says
- The architectural features of a 100m tall tenon and mortise pile dwelling also failed to impress government officials
Beijing has ordered the “rectification” of two tourism projects that it branded vain and wasteful, including a gigantic statue of the Chinese war deity Guan Yu more than half the height of the Statue of Liberty.
The order was issued by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development last month and reported on the ministry’s website on Thursday.
Besides the Guan Yu statue in Jingzhou in the central province of Hubei, the order named the Shuisi Futang Building, a 24-storey structure in the poverty-stricken Dushan county of southwest China’s Guizhou province, as a wasteful eyesore.
Both projects had huge investment poured into them by local government in the hope of attracting millions of tourists.
While the ministry’s order called for rectification, it did not specify if the local governments had to demolish the projects or just modify them.
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