The Great Wall of China, one of the longest structures in the world, has been overcome by many attackers over the centuries. Recently, this also includes two construction workers from Shanxi Province.
Jochen Stahnke
Political correspondent for China, Taiwan and North Korea based in Beijing.
“At around 4:20 pm on August 24, the command center of the county public security bureau received a report that a gap had been dug in the thirty-second section of the Great Wall of China in Yangqianhe Township,” said the Yuyou local police. . So Wang, 55, and Zheng, 38, expanded an existing opening in the Great Wall so they could get through with their excavator. The two wanted to shorten the journey to a nearby construction site. Now they have been arrested.
The crime scene is located in Shanxi province, far from the tourist sections of the World Heritage Wall. Many parts of the Great Wall of China, which was originally more than twenty thousand kilometers long, are now dilapidated and buried. However, the section in question must still have risen a few meters if we take as a reference the stone wall in the photo next to the newly leveled sand track.
“Irreparable damage”
Parts of the wall date back to the Ming Dynasty period and, according to police information, are located near the thirty-second watchtower near Youyu, several hundred kilometers west of Beijing. From the 3rd century BC until the Ming Dynasty in the 17th century, the wall, actually several walls and ramparts, was repeatedly expanded and rebuilt. The construction workers “caused irreparable damage to the integrity of the Ming Great Wall and the safety of cultural relics,” local police said.
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Although the two Inner Mongolia construction workers may not have known what they were removing, they could be sentenced to prison. After the Ming period, the wall was abandoned and it is said that the founder of the People’s Republic, Mao Tse-tung, initially had little interest in the historical relic. Recently, however, communists have returned to using the wall as a symbol of their own power, as well as a symbol of defense against external influences. For several years now, state and party leader Xi Jinping has been delivering his New Year speeches in front of a painting of the Great Wall of China. The image of a hole will not look good.