Recently, a man from Beijing filed a real-name report accusing Nie, the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Street Office in the Beijing Thirteen Tombs Special Zone, of illegally plastering the Great Wall with tiles for profit within the boundaries of the Juyongguan Cultural Heritage Protection Zone, charging as much as 80,000 to 800,000 yuan for each tile that cost 100 yuan to produce. More than 2,000 people were deceived, with illegal gains totaling nearly 200 million yuan.
On August 5th, a man claiming to be the Director of the “Chinese Patriotic Merit Roll” project at the Great Wall, Mr. Shikaihua, filed a report using his real identity, accusing Nie, the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Beijing Thirteen Tombs Special Zone Office, for engaging in the illegal project of plastering tiles on the Great Wall within the Juyongguan Great Wall Cultural Heritage Protection Zone without approval. They branded the tiles costing 100 yuan each as “patriotic public welfare” and “national project,” charging between 80,000 to 800,000 yuan.
As early as February 2006, a woman named Wang, who claimed to be from the Juyongguan Great Wall Management Office’s “Building Love Great Wall Project Office,” mentioned that many tourists express their love by carving words and declarations on the ancient Great Wall. To prevent further damage to the Great Wall, a section named “Love Great Wall” was built at Juyongguan, where couples could subscribe to a brick on the “Love Wall” for 999 yuan and carve words freely on it.
According to her introduction, the “Love Great Wall” is located on the west side of the ancient tavern opposite the Yuntai in Juyongguan Great Wall, measuring 80.08 meters long and 7.5 meters high, made of marble, with a total of 9,999 bricks used. At that time, Dong Yaohui, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Great Wall Society, mentioned, “Due to the lack of effective protection measures for the Great Wall, some operating units often engage in profit-making activities under the guise of protecting the Great Wall.”
Following the controversy, the Beijing Cultural Relics Bureau stated at the end of the month that the “Love Great Wall” within the Juyongguan Great Wall Cultural Heritage Protection Zone was an illegal activity, and the stones with carvings were removed.
The so-called “Chinese Patriotic Merit Roll” at the entrance of the Great Wall in Juyongguan, known as the “First Pass Under Heaven,” was a key image project for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The “Merit Roll” at that time contained declarations or signatures of so-called “patriotism” from CCP leaders, generals, scientists, Olympic champions, and others. As for whether the local government turned this into a “business” and sold it to those in need, it is unknown to Epoch Times.
It is worth noting that Mr. Shikaihua stated that since June 2018, he has reported the illegal activities of Nie and others to various departments in Beijing. All evidence has been notarized to preserve the integrity, including penalties for unauthorized construction on the Great Wall, tile pricing standards, payment accounts, audio-visual materials carefully confirming the legal and factual relationship between the evidence and the facts to be proven but no results have been achieved thus far.
He mentioned that during this period, he had been frequently attacked and retaliated against by certain charitable and patriotic organizations, such as Zhen. His online reports were specifically blocked. He emphasized, “I guarantee that everything is true and am willing to take full legal responsibility for it.” He earnestly requested everyone to continue paying attention to this matter and asked more victims of the Great Wall tile scam to step forward.
In response, netizens commented, “I always thought that plastering tiles on the Great Wall and installing elevators on Mount Everest were jokes, but it turns out to be true. The so-called ‘patriotic project’ is just a guise for officials to profit, treating historical heritage as a cash cow.”