Not So Great Walls

Beijing’s hutong alleyways have faced waves of demolitions and ‘renovations’ through the centuries. But this time around the relentless drive towards modernisation looks more determined than ever

- Stephen Finch

Imagine you are a small business owner. One day you go out to buy some supplies, meet a client and then catch the subway back to the office. You’ve stepped out for about three hours. Then, when you go to put the keys in the office front door, you realise the entranceway has been bricked up.

Hundreds of businesses in the narrow, winding hutongs (alleys formed by lines of traditional courtyard residences) of fast disappearing old Beijing have suffered this same fate in recent months, and the government drive to tidy up these iconic symbols of the Chinese capital shows no signs of ending.

It’s not just offices and shops that are suffering. In the past, the municipal government doled out hutong homes to residents at low prices who then rented them out for ever-rising rent prices – yet another quirk of China’s mixed-up brand of rigid communism and anything-goes capitalism. But now local officials are saying only hutongs ‘owned’ through leaseholds can be rented – a small percentage – meaning waves of people forced out.

“If you could imagine this exact thing that’s going on in Beijing happening in a place like New York City, it would be civil war in a matter of minutes,” says an American architect and long-time Beijing resident who lost his home, most of the bars and restaurants he used to frequent and saw his small company office bricked up in the past few months. “In under an hour, there would be mass hysteria, huge fights.”