Chinese builders are copying on a large scale

Beijing - In Beijing, a new complex, Wangjing SOHO, is slowly rising above the smog-covered horizon. The trio of graceful office buildings was designed by the world-renowned British architect of Iraqi origin, Zaha Hadid. About 1,400 kilometers further south, the construction of two buildings is rising, whose design looks exactly like the Beijing complex designed by Hadid, wrote The Wall Street Journal.
    The second development company denies that it "copied" the design and even created a slogan for its project in this sense. "We never want to copy," it states on their official website. "We only want to surpass."
    This motto could be the mantra of China's massive architectural boom. To show the scale at which everything is undertaken, the Chinese have embraced the art of imitation—and copying—on a grand scale.
    In recent years, some Chinese developers and even government officials have churned out meticulously copied replicas of the greatest architectural hits of the West, from UNESCO World Heritage sites to pearls from Le Corbusier’s workshop and Manhattan skyscrapers. Paris, California's Orange County, the Swiss town of Interlaken, Amsterdam—all these places have their doubles in China. In Hangzhou, gondolas glide along artificially constructed canals of the "Water City of Venice", which features its own St. Mark's Square and Doge's Palace.
    Last year, developers in Huizhou unveiled a brick-by-brick copied replica of the Austrian village of Hallstatt, complete with cobbled streets, a historic church, and even cafes with sidewalk tables.
    However, the first prize for the most copied building goes to the White House, says Chinese architect Yun Chang, who once headed the architecture department at MIT. This building has served as a model for everything from seafood restaurants to family homes and government offices in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wenzhou, and Nanjing.
    This copying is not intended to flatter the West, nor is it a certain kind of "self-colonization". Copies are built as evidence of China’s technological advancement, influence, and power. The Chinese take symbols of Western architecture as proof of their own rise and aspirations for global dominance.
    It is a compulsion that has deep roots in Chinese architectural tradition dating back thousands of years. Emperors of the past enjoyed demonstrating their dominance by imitating or copying rival territories, for example, through vast parks featuring flora and fauna brought from distant islands. In the third century BC, the first emperor Qin Shi Huang celebrated the conquest of six rival kingdoms by ordering that exact replicas of their palaces be built in the capital.
    Nowadays, similarly imitated Eiffel Towers and Chrysler Building skyscrapers symbolize China’s power to dominate the world by bringing Europe and the United States onto its territory.
    The traditional Chinese attitude toward imitation or replication may help explain this trend. While Americans look upon imitations with distaste, the Chinese have traditionally adopted a more conciliatory and different approach to them. Copying can be valued as a mark of skill and superiority.
    However, the growing Chinese economy, alongside the financial troubles of the European Union and the United States, may lead to a new trend in a new era, where the Chinese begin to imitate their own Forbidden City in Beijing instead of the White House. In some parts of the country, replicas of Chinese symbols are already starting to appear—right next to replicas of Versailles.
    "Chinese people are beginning to realize: 'We have money. We have a lot of money. We are richer than our Western rivals'," says Beijing architecture professor Zhou Zhong.
    So rather than grumble about being copied by the Chinese, the West should start fearing the day when the Chinese stop looking to them for things to imitate.