Fuxing Mansion in Tai'erzhuang is built for cross-Straits communication.

Concerned Conservation

Starting in misty Weishan Lake, Tai’erzhuang Canal meanders east through vast southern Shandong to the Grand Canal’s middle section in Jiangsu province. The 42.5-km-long canal is its sole east-west section. In the past it was little more than a drainage ditch and garbage dump for the shanty towns along it.

Taking into consideration the recent history of the Shandong section, its application for world heritage might appear ambitious. Owing to historical vicissitudes, the once splendid Grand Canal underwent a gloomy decline. Urbanization and an expanding population resulted in the dumping of trash and construction of shacks along the ancient watercourse. In earlier times a famous cultural town in north China that rivaled even south China’s Hangzhou and Suzhou, historical records show that Zhangqiu Town of Liaocheng City was formerly graced with dozens of temples. Today, however, all have vanished without trace.

As the starting point of the Huitong Canal, the Linqing section is a vital node on the Grand Canal. Linqing’s abundant cultural heritages gave rise to the epithet “living cultural museum of the Ming and Qing dynasties.” After the general decline, however, the Linqing watercourse narrowed and fell into disuse. Certain spots along it degenerated into sewage outlets, and heritage sites sustained varying degrees of damage. The swarms of mosquitos that hovered over piles of miasmatic stinking garbage kept locals at a safe distance.

In addition to these difficulties, the Shandong section also had to deal with the fundamental issues of heritage and cultural protection, water transport, water conservancy and management, as well as local development projects. Taking into account problems associated with its choked reaches north of Jining’s Liangshan County, the Shandong section had the most onerous task of all others in accomplishing the environmental management necessary for its world heritage application. But the fact is that prior to the application a number of cities in Shandong had already embarked on Grand Canal conservation projects. After the application, various regions then set about the arduous and detailed work of clearance, regulation, restoration, and dredging.

To complete the work necessary for the Shandong section’s application, the CPC provincial committee and government established a strong leadership and working mechanism, signing liability compacts with the five cities along it. The provincial government published the Conservation Plan of the Shandong Section of the Grand Canal Heritage and also promulgated and implemented the Measures for the Protection and Management of the Shandong Section of the Grand Canal Heritage. China’s first provincial-level regulation on protecting the Grand Canal, it makes clear that within the protection domain and construction control area, such behavior as earth excavation and sewage disposal that damages the Shandong section constitutes cultural relic destruction – a civil or even criminal liability according to law.

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