Public reaction to McDonald’s plans to expand into West Lake, a Chinese tourist landmark often referred to as “heaven on earth”, was predictably dismissive. The Qianjiang Evening News criticized the plan, writing, “In the future, will Uncle McDonald (Ronald McDonald) with his red hair, and big smile on his face, be sitting on a bench just metres away from the Broken Bridge?” Online netizens reacted much the same. “This is a joke,” one person wrote on Weibo. “Can we turn Mao’s old house into a KFC?”

However, the outrage was not enough to sway the proposal. In addition to McDonald’s, a Starbucks also opened on the property two months ago.

Before approving the proposal, former Deputy Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage, Chen Wenjin, argued the residence was a cultural resource and that any commercial proposals should pass the scrutiny of government agencies and experts.

Chen also said the administration would ensure that the residence’s facade and internal structure remain unchanged, and that the residence would continue to serve the public good.

Chiang Ching-kuo was given the two-story residence by the mayor of Hangzhou after the Kuomintang successfully repelled the Japanese invasion during World War II. Ching-kuo’s father, Chiang Kai-shek, was given another residence, also on the West Lake property. Chiang Ching-kuo is said to have planted many of the trees on the property.

After the Kuomintang was ousted from mainland China by the Communists, Chiang Ching-kuo eventually succeeded his father and became President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) where he enacted press and free speech reforms, and allowed local Taiwanese to obtain positions of power in the government.

This isn’t the first time Western fast food franchises have set up shop in culturally-significant locations. In 2007, following a campaign initiated by former CCTV anchor Rui Chenggang, public outcry forced Starbucks to close a store it had opened at the Forbidden City in Beijing.

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A local paper from the next day declares: “Guangzhou has been liberated”, image courtesy of Yangcheng Evening News

In April 1949, after the communists took Nanjing, the last remnants of the Kuomintang government fled and set up in Guangzhou, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s official website. Three Kuomintang corps of a combined total of around 150,000 people then set about defending Guangdong from the north in a last ditch attempt to win the civil war, with Guangzhou as the key strategic base.

Under the leadership of general Ye Jianying and Zhang Yunyi, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) made inroads in Longchuan and the area east of Dongguan in the following months.

On Oct. 2 it became clear that the game was up. Qingyuan, Conghua, Zengcheng and most of northeastern Guangdong fell to the communists. Senior Kuomintang warlords and officials started to flee, with Yan Xishan going to Taiwan and Li Zongren temporarily relocating the government to Chongqing.

At 6:30 p.m. on October 14, PLA troops entered central Guangzhou and the last of the Kuomintang army in the region was annihilated in Yangjiang, marking the end of the civil war in Guangdong.

However, to this day Guangzhou is probably the major city in which, according to author, translator and long-term expat Bruce Humes, the party’s presence can least be felt. As evidence for this, Humes cites the relative freedom of the media. This was seen in January this year during the Southern Weekly standoff. It is also evident in the way that a large number of joint foreign ventures in the city do not have a party cell or a party secretary, according to Humes.

Another major factor in Guangzhou’s insulation from Beijing is the Cantonese language. Cantonese is more ancient and therefore more “authentically Chinese” than Mandarin, a language that has been influenced by northern ethnic groups such as the Mongols and the Manchu, Humes told The Nanfang.

All of these ingredients go into making Guangzhou a contender for the title of the nation’s freest and most exciting city.

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