Most of Beijing's historic buildings are poorly maintained and lack protection against fire and lightning strikes, though almost all of them still serve as homes, schools or workshops, sources with the city's cultural heritage administration say.
The situation has been criticized by experts and scholars in recent years as a misuse of the heritage sites, mostly former abodes of important historic figures, from imperial family members and ministers to forerunners of the Chinese revolution.
The issue was on the table of an internal meeting at the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage on Wednesday. Sources attending the meeting said at least 60 percent of the 322 most important historic buildings in downtown Beijing were in constant danger of fire.
These buildings, including two-story houses or palace gardens that can accommodate dozens of families each, are home to more than 4,000 urban families and an additional 7,000 families live within a radius of 10 meters, said an official on condition of anonymity.
"The old houses could go up in flames if one of the kitchens catches fire or an overburdened circuit sparks," he said.
Most of the houses were not equipped with fire extinguishers. Nor had the electrical wiring been renovated properly, said the official.
"These families should have moved out years ago so that we could better protect the historic sites. But they need to be properly compensated to buy new homes."
A massive relocation would cost at least 100 billion yuan (US$12.8 billion).
Skyrocketing house prices in urban Beijing have made such plans even more distant. Apartments in the city center sell at an average of 15,000 yuan per square meter.
Relocation costs could take 90 percent of the cultural heritage administration's total budget for heritage protection, said its director Kong Fanzhi.
A 500-year-old courtyard close to the Tian'anmen Square, where the imperial archives of the Ming and Qing dynasties were stored, is occupied by 26 families of its former employees and crammed with shacks to accommodate more people.
And the former palace of a Qing Dynasty prince in Dongdan, close to the Wangfujing commercial street, is a workshop producing telecom devices.
Toward the end of last year, a school affiliated to China Conservatory finally moved out of the Prince Gong's Palace, the largest of its kind close to the Shichahai bar area of downtown Beijing after 28 years of government intervention and at a cost of more than 100 million yuan (US$12.8 million).
To tackle the heavy financial burdens, some experts advise Beijing should follow the example of the northern Shanxi Province in its protection and renovation of the ancient walled city of Pingyao, some 90 km south of the provincial capital Taiyuan.
The local government had to relocate and compensate, step by step, more than 100,000 residents in Pingyao, and invited investors to renovate and maintain the ancient buildings to help cover the costs.
Pingyao was China's financial centre in the 19th Century. Now restored, it draws 20 million yuan a year in tourism revenue, some of which is used to fund maintenance.
In 1997, Pingyao was designated a World Heritage Site for its almost perfectly preserved architecture from the Ming and Qing periods dating back 600 years.
However, Beijing has promised to postpone major renovation projects on the city's cultural sites in 2008 to allow Olympic Games tourists to better appreciate them.
"Next year, there will be no scaffolding around old buildings," Shu Xiaofeng, an official of the city's cultural heritage administration, has said.
Beijing expects to host 2.5 million domestic and foreign visitors during the Olympics.
Heritage officials had budgeted 500 million yuan to maintain the city's antiquities over the next five years, but in 2008, renovation work would be transferred to Beijing's outer regions, Shu said.
The Forbidden City, Summer Palace and Temple of Heaven, three of Beijing's top tourist draws, have all undergone recent renovations.
(Xinhua News Agency July 13, 2007)