Memorial to Chinese labourers who helped allies in World War I struggles to find a home in Britain
- The 30-tonne marble column cost 250,000 pounds to make and is ready to be shipped from China, where it was carved
- But the group behind it has run into problems finding a suitable site for it to be erected, despite having the backing of London’s mayor
The 9.6-metre-high marble huabiao – a traditional ceremonial column – weighing more than 30 tonnes has been completed by stonemasons in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province and is now ready for shipment.
The only problem is that so far, no one in the UK has been prepared to give it a home.
Chinese Labour Corps: the first world war’s forgotten army
As non-combatants, they dug trenches, buried the dead, carried the wounded, fixed tanks and made munitions freeing up European manpower to fight the German-led aggressors. Their farming skills also proved invaluable to grow food for the troops.
The Ensuring We Remember campaign, an umbrella group for nine Chinese community organisations that commissioned the statue is now hoping to enlist the support of London Mayor Sadiq Khan to find a new site.
In a leaflet addressed to the Chinese community shortly before the 2016 mayoral election, Khan promised to support the campaign for the memorial.
“The mayor remains committed to working with London’s Chinese community to commemorate the Chinese Labour Corps’ vital contribution to Britain’s first world war effort with a memorial in London,” Khan’s office told the South China Morning Post in response to a query. “City Hall will continue to support the campaign group in its efforts to find a suitable location in the capital for the memorial.”
The base of the statue is 12 metres square, and extra space will be required around it to give people room to visit.
Carvings on the mammoth structure include motives of four poppies representing the UK, France, Belgium and China and a “Y” symbol, a nod to the Young Men’s Christian Association, or YMCA, that provided welfare and educational support to the Chinese labourers.
The monument is expected to be a major attraction for Chinese tourists visiting London.
Chinatown in London’s West End has been mooted as a possible site for the memorial, but land prices there are among the highest in the UK, space is tight and there are concerns it would be seen as a Chinese monument rather than one of relevance to the whole of Britain.
Other sites that have been suggested include Limehouse in East London - the city’s first Chinatown, which was already well established when the Chinese Labour Corps began to arrive in Europe - and a new Malaysian development in Nine Elms near the new US embassy in South London.
“Ideally we would like to have the huabiao in place before next May which would a centenary after the last of the [labour corps] left Europe” said Steve Lau, chairman of the Ensuring We Remember Campaign.
Once erected, the London memorial will be “the biggest and the most spectacular of all of them in Europe,” he said.
An article published at the end of the war in British Weekly magazine told how King George V paid a visit to the Chinese Labour Corps stationed in France.
“They had erected a real Chinese triumphal arch in his honour,” the article read. “Chinese mottoes about the dawn of peace and the virtues of the king and his ministers emblazoned the walls, and flags fluttered everywhere. They shouted a Chinese welcome when his majesty came, and sent him off with a cheer like the sound of many waters.”
It would be fitting if London could now find a few square metres of land to honour those who gave so much to the war effort.
