BEIJING: A full size replica of parts of Beijing’s nationally sensitive Old Summer Palace has opened 1,000 kilometres away from China’s capital, state media reported on Monday, despite managers of the original threatening legal action.

The vast array of gardens, palaces and lakes in the western suburbs of the Chinese capital was used by Qing dynasty emperors in the 19th Century.

The original site is regarded as a symbol of national humiliation in China after it was sacked by British and French troops in 1860 in response to the capture, torture and killing of members of a delegation from the two European countries.

Communist authorities tout it as an example of the country’s victimisation by foreign powers as the complex — parts of which were designed by French and Italian Jesuit missionaries — was looted again by forces from the United States, Russia and Britain in 1900.

The first stage of the sprawling 400 hectare (1,000 acre) replica in the eastern province of Zhejiang opened its doors to tourists on Sunday despite being plagued by a “never-ending debate”, the Beijing News said.

The 30 billion yuan ($4.8bn) attraction some 620 miles from Beijing will eventually feature a replica of 95 per cent of the Old Summer Palace, state media said.

While the original, known as the Yuanmingyuan, is now mainly ruins, managers of the site last month threatened legal action “if the replica infringed intellectual property rights”, the official Xinhua news agency reported. “(The original complex) is unique and cannot be replicated”, the venue’s administrative office said in a statement sent to Xinhua.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2015

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