Amid Rapid Change, China Tries to Preserve Its Past

Most cities would be happy to open one multimillion-dollar museum for art, history or science in a decade.

Beijing has just unveiled two.

The Beijing Capital Museum, moved to a sleek new building with an airy foyer soaring five stories high, features exhibitions that include a full-scale copy of one the city’s old residential lanes.

The Museum of Chinese Film, which visitors enter through a star-shaped front door, showcases a century of cinema history from the mainland, as well as Hong Kong and other Chinese communities.

The pair are part of a museum-building boom that the government says will lead over the next decade to about 300 new institutions, focusing on such subjects as World War II and the life of communist founder Mao Tse-tung. Each of China’s 55 ethnic minorities is to get its own museum.

China “can afford to spend more resources remembering the past and meeting the cultural needs of the ordinary people,” said Sun Wuyi, a spokesman for the Capital Museum.

The new museums also reflect the communist government’s desire to put its stamp on history.

“What they have is a state monopoly view of history,” said Thomas Bartlett, a historian at Australia’s La Trobe University. “They want one authoritative version that is accepted by all.”

The museum drive is part of a quiet revolution that has swept over the lives of millions of urban Chinese since the introduction of capitalist-style economic changes in 1979.

As China has become richer, authorities have been trying to ensure that new facilities are available to celebrate historical and cultural milestones.

The strategy is reflected at the Capital Museum, which avoids sensitive political events by skipping the last five decades of communist rule.

Art displays in the museum, just west of Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, include classical landscape paintings and leading examples of calligraphy.

Dozens of rooms and hundreds of exhibitions feature historical artifacts and representations, such as Buddhist figures unearthed by archeologists and a model of one of the city’s narrow “hutong” lanes.

“The purpose of the museum is to explain Beijing’s excellent history and culture and show them to the world,” said Peng Xin, a museum spokeswoman.

The history displays end with a film of the proclamation of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

There is no mention of seminal events such as the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, the ultra-radical upheaval under which thousands of people were killed and millions persecuted.

“The event is still too close to the present to have an official version,” Bartlett said. “No one knows yet how it is supposed to turn out.”

At the $67-million film museum, there are 21 exhibition halls, featuring items such as fading posters for war movies and costumes used in early 20th century period dramas.

Special sections are reserved for the film industries of Hong Kong and Macao, recently returned to Chinese rule, and Taiwan, which split with the mainland amid civil war in 1949.

Taiwan’s inclusion reflects the government’s insistence on maintaining the image that the self-ruled island is part of its territory and must unite with the mainland.