Leave the Goddess where she belongs

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 21, 2003

Leave the Goddess where she belongs

Wushan County in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has been attracting a lot of media attention these days because of reports that it is planning to build a 138-metre-tall statue.

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Wushan County in Southwest China's Chongqing Municipality has been attracting a lot of media attention these days because of reports that it is planning to build a 138-metre-tall statue.

The county's planning committee reportedly approved a plan to build a statue of the Goddess - an imaginary figure associated with a mountain peak near the Yangtze River. She was made famous by her appearance in one of late Chairman Mao Zedong's poems.

The Goddess was to become a symbol of the county, standing at the river's edge, near a ferry terminal.

The planned statue was to be 47 metres taller than the Statue of Liberty in New York.

Such reports would not have aroused so much controversy had Wushan not been one of the 12 State-subsidized impoverished counties in Chongqing Municipality.

The average annual income of the county's rural population, 80 per cent of its total, was 1,453 yuan (US$175) last year, while the country's average level was 2,476 yuan (US$298).

Should such a poor county spend an estimated 400 million yuan (US$48 million) on a statue while receiving State poverty-alleviation subsidies? Is it desirable to build up an artificial Goddess when the real Goddess peak is still standing there in the picturesque Three Gorges?

Definitely not.

Such a statue would not only burden the local people, but also damage the natural beauty of the landscape.

And a project like this would not bring local authorities any kudos, only condemnation for wasting public revenues and ignoring real public needs.

In the wake of public criticism, local authorities have stated the idea remains a plan, and that no decision has yet been made.

Whether this is because the local government has changed its mind, or because the proposed project was never anything more than a rumour, it will be wonderful to hear that there will be no such pointless and costly undertaking.

Local authorities' lust for the grandiose has cost the country astronomical losses. Let Wushan's Goddess remain in the mountains, and let the Yangtze wash away such empty aggrandizing dreams.

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