"The Grand Canal of China is as great as the Great Wall," said Wu Jianmin, spokesman for the annual session of the CPPCC National Committee.??

?"The Grand Canal of China is as great as the Great Wall," said Wu Jianmin, spokesman for the annual session of the CPPCC National Committee. Wu said this during an exclusive interview to reporters from China News Service.

The Grand Canal, which was listed as one of the most important national protected heritage sites last year, has attracted the attention of more and more people.

"Currently many people know the Great Wall, but they have no ideas of the Grand Canal. Some people pay little attention to cultural relic protection, but the nation's historians know the importance of cultural relics," Wu said. He also revealed that French President Chirac also intended to visit the Grand Canal when he visited Yangzhou in Jiangsu Province, which, he believed, could also demonstrate the uniqueness of the canal.

The Grand Canal, also known as the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, is the longest artificial river in the world. Some people regard it and the Great Wall as one of the two greatest ancient engineering projects.

Wu said, "Since the Grand Canal was built in A.D. 605, it has become a crucial transportation channel in 1,400 years."

Several members of the CPPCC National Committee also hope to list the canal as a World Cultural Heritage site, and some of them have inspected the regions along the canal. Wu told our reporters that in some sections of the canal, pollution is serious, and some section of the river are hardly navigable. He hoped these problems solved as soon as possible.

(Chinanews March 7, 2007)