“Preserving” Beijing’s centre forcing the relocation of 200,000 residents
Beijing (AsiaNews) – About 200,000 residents of central Beijing will be forcibly moved out as part of a five-year plan to preserve the capital's heritage. The decision to “relocate” residents is in the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning's long-awaited 11th Five-Year Plan for the Preservation of Beijing as a Cultural and Historical City.
Under the blueprint, authorities will try to ease population pressure in the central districts by moving out within five years residents who are crowded into the old city's courtyards and narrow streets, in accordance with proper “legal, economic and administrative procedures.”
The plan covers the capital's urban and suburban areas (16,410 km2) and includes the preservation of the city’s cultural heritage, archaeological sites, buildings and historic layout.
This means that petrol stations will no longer be built in old city areas, and that upgrades to alleyways, courtyards and buildings in the districts will have to meet strict heritage standards.
All this runs against the urban development policies adopted in Beijing at the end of the 1990s when forced demolitions of some of the city’s best neighbourhoods were carried out in preparation of the Olympics.
Within the Erhuan, the capital’s “second ring,” which represents the city’s historic central areas, houses dating back to the 1300 and the 1400s were destroyed.
According to some local Catholics more than half of Beijing’s historic central district has been bulldozed into oblivion. Beijing’ Siheyuan, the typical residences with courtyards that were built as early as the Ming dynasty, have all but disappeared. Near the Forbidden City, the neighbourhood that housed scholar-officials (Mandarins) has been gutted.
For years residents have complained about government bullying tactics designed to drive them out of their own homes. Intimidation and threats have included stopping gas and power supplies, applying physical violence against locals and even stealthy demolitions when residents were not at home.
The government’s practice has been to pay “compensation” to displaced residents. However, the amount of money given to the average family pushed out from areas near the Zhongnanhai, the centrally-located compound that houses Communist Party of China leaders and their families, is not enough to buy a low-quality flat in the outskirts of the city.
Behind this operation there is a scheme involving local government officials, real estate developers and the courts, which have routinely failed to protect residents or accept their complaints and petitions against such operations.
In some awful cases protesters have doused themselves with flammable liquids and set themselves on fire and died in front of their homes.
In this latest case, many fear that something similar might happen again.
For instance, Liu Xiaoshi, former chief planner of the Beijing Urban Planning Bureau, said he was most curious to see how the government would move the 200,000 residents in a reasonable way, saying that relocations should be driven by the interests of residents rather than those of officials or developers.
“The government,” he noted, “should make sure such relocations are not driven by profits for land developers allied with corrupt officials.”
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23/07/2009
16/02/2018 17:27
