Beijing’s Forbidden City has dumped plans for an exclusive club inside the historic imperial palace complex.
State media reported that an elite club for the super-rich was being planned for a section of the sprawling complex, with club memberships being offered for one million yuan ($A145,000).
According to AFP, news of the plan went viral online, with Internet users criticising it as a sign of a creeping return to the feudalism that prevailed in imperial China for thousands of years until the 1911 collapse of the Qing Dynasty.
After initially denying the reports, authorities at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City issued a statement
“At present we have thoroughly put a stop to this inappropriate behaviour and have undertaken comprehensive changes,” it said.
It blamed the Beijing Forbidden City Cultural Development Company, a marketing arm of the museum, for going ahead with the proposal at the Jianfu Palace hall without approval.
The Palace Museum said the hall “cannot and will never become a luxurious private club for the global elite and wealthy”.
The state-run Global Times newspaper said “elites of society” had been invited to attend an opening ceremony, where “national treasures” would be on display and armed police would stand watch in “ancient warrior costumes.”
Last week, Beijing police arrested a man suspected of stealing 10 million yuan worth of artifacts from a temporary exhibition. The rare theft led to widespread criticism over lax security at the palace.
