"Too Big and Ugly"... 57m Giant Guan Yu Bronze Statue in China Struck Down

Giant Bronze Statue of Guan Yu in Hubei Province, China
[Image source = Screenshot from Global Times][Image source = Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Eun-young] The giant bronze statue of Guan Yu, created to honor the Three Kingdoms hero Guan Yu, is facing a rectification crisis. The reason is that it is excessively large and considered an eyesore.

According to foreign media on the 9th, on the 8th, China's Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development ordered the Guan Yu bronze statue in Jingzhou City and the "Cheonhajeil Suiseuro" (水司樓) wooden hotel in Guizhou Province to undergo reorganization, with strengthened regulations and improved systems.

The world's largest Guan Yu bronze statue and the wooden hotel "Cheonhajeil Suiseuro" measure 57 meters and 99.9 meters respectively. The Guan Yu statue is about the height of a 20-story building and weighs 1,320 tons.

Originally, these were built as gigantic tourist structures with the sole determination to "make them as big as possible." However, these buildings pushed local governments into bankruptcy and were criticized as "eyesores" due to their excessive size, becoming emblematic of China's notorious waste of public funds.

The Guan Yu bronze statue was erected by Jingzhou City, one of the main settings of the Three Kingdoms, to honor the hero Guan Yu, and was once recorded as the world's largest bronze sculpture. However, its enormous size overwhelms all the scenery of Jingzhou and has been criticized for ruining the city's traditional charm.

Additionally, the reckless construction of such gigantic tourist buildings caused a sharp increase in local government debt and led to concerns about the erosion of historical value.

Furthermore, the Guan Yu statue is built atop a two-story exhibition facility, which has been found to be at risk of collapse due to its inability to support the weight of the bronze sculpture. Consequently, the rectification order includes plans for renovation of the exhibition hall.

4.38 billion KRW invested to create Doosan Hyun Suitsureou
[Image source = Screenshot from Huanqiu Shibao][Image source = Yonhap News]

Suiseuro also faced demands for reorganization amid criticism that the local government's excessive ambition damaged the landscape. Suiseuro is a building constructed in the small area of Dosan-hyeon at a cost of approximately 43.8 billion Korean won. Initially started with the aim of setting a Guinness World Record, the project was abandoned midway, drawing criticism for excessive public fund waste and disruption of the scenery.

These two buildings are cited as representative cases where Chinese local governments spent excessive budgets but failed to achieve their original purposes, amid controversies such as illegal construction and waste of public funds.

Chinese authorities emphasized that the proliferation of cultural landmarks should not erase regional characteristics and particularly stressed that construction projects aimed at leaving political achievements for local politicians must be eradicated.