After centuries of restoration and additions,
Jinci Temple at the foot of Xuanweng Mountain in Taiyuan,
Shanxi Province is a garden and architectural complex that was
granted national protection by the State Council in 1961 and
designated an AAAA scenic area by the State Tourism Administration
at January 2001. Now to further protect its gardens, sculptures,
steles and ancient trees Jinci Temple seeks a further distinction:
World Heritage Site.
Jinci Temple is among 50 other cultural and natural sites listed on
the China's "World Heritage Candidate List" -- the first step in
applying for World Heritage status. In Shanxi Province alone, three
other sites are on the list: Dingcu Village Relics, Ying Country
Wooden Pagoda, and the Eternal Joy Temple. Given increasing
world-wide competition for World Heritage status, the Chinese
government decided not to report this year any heritage sites to
the World Heritage Center of UNESCO, waiting instead until next
year when the 27th Session of the World Heritage Committee will be
held in Beijing. Next year will also be the 2,500th anniversary of
the founding of Taiyuan City.
World-wide 690 cultural and natural preservation sites are on the
World Heritage list which was created in 1972 when UNESCO's 17th
Meeting passed a "World Cultural and Natural Heritage Preservation
Treaty" in Paris. China joined and became a signatory state to the
treaty on November 22, 1985 ratified by the 13th Session of the
Standing Committee of the Sixth National People's Congress. In 1987
the first World Heritage were designated in China: The Great Wall,
the Palace Museum, the Zhoukoudian Home of Peking Man, the Mogao
Grottoes, the Mausoleum of the First Emperor of Qin in Xi'an and
the Terracotta Warriors and Horses. China now has 28 cultural and
natural relics on the World Heritage list, ranking third in the
world after Spain and Italy.
Each application for World Heritage site designation can promote
public awareness about history and civilization. While increasing
the cohesiveness of a whole city, the application can have a huge
social and economic impact. The most important impact is the better
protection of precious historical natural sites. However,
designation as a World Heritage site has proved to be a boon for
tourism. For example, the year after the Chengde Mountain Resort to
Escape the Heat was listed as a World Heritage site, the number of
tourists there increased 10 percent. As for Pingyao City in Shanxi,
tourism noticeably increased after its World Cultural Heritage site
designation.
In the case of Jinci, the process of application began in September
2001 when experts gathered from the State Administration of
Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Construction, the Chinese
Academy of Engineering, Tsinghua University, Peking University,
Beijing Forestry University and the Provincial Cultural Relics
Bureau to make a feasibility study. These experts agreed that the
architecture, sculpture, gardens and steles in Jinci Temple do meet
the criteria of the World Cultural Heritage in historical,
scientific and arts value.
On March 21, 2002, the 28th Session of the Standing Committee of
the Ninth Shanxi Provincial People's Congress ratified and
promulgated a "regulation on protection of Jinci Temple of
Taiyuan," and renovation projects have started according to the
"Jinci Temple Preservation Planning."
Taiyuan city in Western Zhou Dynasty (1600-1100BC) was the
territory of Tang regime, conferred by Chengwang to his younger
brother Shuyu. Shuyu's son changed Tang to Jin because of the Jinhe
River flowing across Taiyuan. Descendants built a memorial temple
and other architectures in commemoration of Shuyu and his mother,
which was called Jinci Temple. The exact date of construction is
not known, but according to historical documents, Jinci Temple has
a history of at least 1,500 years.
(By Zhang Tingting, china.org.cn staff reporter, June 13, 2002)