The Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan) is a royal garden destroyed by the British and French expeditionary forces 150 years ago. It is closely related to the word “shame” in the minds of Chinese people. Now, it has become a park, playing a recreational function while maintaining its original appearance and local ecology.
In 1985, I passed the written postgraduate entrance exam, and came to Beijing for an interview. The Old Summer Palace was the first spot I visited accompanied by a candidate for Peking University. Two decades later, my second encounter with it resulted from an environmental event, the new “Old Summer Palace event” in the 21st century.
In March 2005, just before the “World Water Day”, rivers in the Old Summer Palace suffered a calamity. The naturally-distributed lakes of differing depths were drained, and then filled leveled by a dozen or so excavators. In the end the lake beds were covered with plastic film and sealed up with cement at their edges. This was an “anti-seepage project” costing over 150 million Yuan.
It was a part-time Professor of Lanzhou University who first discovered this terrible event, and the People’s Daily was the first media to report it. The Old Summer Place is not just a patriotism education base, but also one of the few systems of natural water in Beijing, having a great impact on the microclimate and the capital’s groundwater system. The company in charge of the project explained that after it was completed, the need to inject water into the lake might be reduced from three times to once a year, thus relieving Beijing’s water shortage. However, applying plastic film over the bottom would destroy the ecology of the lakebed, the overall ecology, and even the life-breeding water resources. The consequence would be that living water would become dead, the ecology of the Old Summer Palace would suffer serious damage, and non-degradable plastic films could also cause great environmental pollution. This is a typical environmental event of damaging aquatic ecosystem. It was carried by all major newspapers in Beijing. The public opinion was seething with indignation, and the voice of denunciation from Beijing citizens was loud and clear.
Faced with this repudiative public opinion, the State Environmental Protection Administration held a hearing. As it was the first hearing on an environmental protection issue, so the whole process was recorded for a webcast. A total of 120 people from all sectors and over 50 media representatives attended the hearing, and I was also invited. The procedure, content and outcome of the hearing were open and fair, and therefore widely acknowledged by the delegates. The hearing aroused enthusiastic social response, and the online viewings exceeded one million.
After the hearing, I published two articles in Beijing News, emphasizing the importance of the wetland ecosystem in the Old Summer Palace and pointing out the mistakes made. With so much opposition expressed from the media and the public, the State Environmental Protection Administration reformed some EIA organizations. On the advice of the public, it adjusted the project, removed the plastic films, laid natural sediment and restored the natural vegetation as well as the original ecology of the Old Summer Palace.
In the whole process of the investigation, the government adhered to the principle of “sunshine administration”. From selecting representatives attending the hearing, the procedures adopted, the environmental impact assessment, reviewing the assessment report, to publishing the final results, the whole process was completely open, fair and equitable, and fully guaranteed people’s rights to know, to participate in and to supervise the investigation.
The successful solution of the “Old Summer Palace Event” shows the significant role the Chinese public and media play in the environmental work. It also manifests the indispensible responsibilities of environment-related departments, and their ability to be open and fair on environmental issues.
[1] In October 1860, the British and French expeditionary forces invaded Beijing, and set fire to the Old Summer Palace, Qingyi Garden, Changchun Garden, Jingming Garden, Jingyi Garden and Longevity Hill, Jade Spring Hill and Flagrant Hill, after widespread looting. The initial excuse for the invasion was that some British and French hostages were imprisoned in the Old Summer Palace, so these events were loosely referred to as Burning of the Old Summer Palace.
