The homes in Beijing’s Dongsi Batiao are being razed to make way for a new residential development.
State media have seized on the destruction of the site, in an officially protected cultural preservation district, as an example of official failure to protect hutongs from an ongoing property boom.
"Municipal authorities must not play the indifferent onlooker when the city’s cultural history is being squandered," an editorial in the state-run China Daily newspaper said on Wednesday.
See full story
photo by Xiaming