Sunday 31 January 2010

Housing plan for ‘Western faces only’ sparks row

A property developer in China is inviting only ‘Western-looking’ foreigners to live in a new development, sparking comparisons with the controversial concession areas in the 1800s, state media said yesterday.

1 comment:

Guanyu said...

Housing plan for ‘Western faces only’ sparks row

30 January 2010

BEIJING: A property developer in China is inviting only ‘Western-looking’ foreigners to live in a new development, sparking comparisons with the controversial concession areas in the 1800s, state media said yesterday.

Ethnic Chinese - even foreign passport holders - will not be welcome to rent apartments in the Tianfu International Community in the south-western city of Chengdu, the Global Times reported.

The ban on Chinese tenants was necessary to maintain the ‘purity’ of the international community, a Chengdu Hi-Tech Investment Group marketing department employee was quoted as saying.

Chengdu Hi-Tech Investment is the parent of Chengdu Hi-Tech Properties, one of the developers involved in the controversial project.

‘The foreigners we are talking about are those Western-looking people. We want to ensure that the international community is pure,’ Mr. Wang said. ‘Others may be welcome later.’

The first phase of the development will be finished in October. Once completed, it will be able to accommodate 5,000 people and will have a church, schools, hospital and playgrounds, the paper said.

Mr. Zheng Xiaoming, head of the planning and construction bureau of the Chengdu National Hi-Tech Zone, told the China Daily the foreigners-only rule was to ensure the community was ‘truly international’.

Chinese residents in Chengdu and web users are incensed by the project.

They say it is racist and reminiscent of the foreign concession territories - created in several Chinese cities after it lost the Opium Wars in the mid-1800s, and regarded as one of the most powerful symbols of Western colonialism.