[Epoch Times December 04, 2021]On December 3rd, Zhang Shuofu, Secretary of the CPC Guangzhou Municipal Committee, and Mayor Wen Guohui were both replaced. This matter immediately aroused the attention and speculation of the outside world.
The Chinese Communist Party’s official media reported on December 3 that Lin Keqing was appointed Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee; Zhang Shuofu was removed from the position of Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee and had another appointment. On that day, Wen Guohui resigned as mayor of Guangzhou, and Guo Yonghang was appointed as the deputy mayor and acting mayor of Guangzhou.
According to Hong Kong’s “Sing Tao Daily”, the replacement of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee Secretary and Mayor is related to the deforestation and relocation of a large number of old banyan trees in Guangzhou since the end of last year. The report quoted sources saying that the incident was reported to the central government, which aroused the attention of the highest level, and ordered a thorough investigation and ordered officials to take responsibility.
The dismissed Guangzhou Secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhang Shuofu, 56 years old, was elected as a member of the Disciplinary Committee at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. In July 2018, he served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee. According to the report, Zhang Shuofu has “another appointment” and will be transferred to the head of the United Front Work of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, and his real power will be greatly reduced.
Apart from cutting trees, it is not clear whether there are other reasons.
In addition, Lin Daoping, the former deputy mayor of Guangzhou, who is in charge of urban construction and ecological protection, was transferred to the Yangjiang Municipal Party Committee in May this year, but was dismissed after only half a year in office. According to official news on November 7th, Lin Daoping will no longer serve as secretary, member of the Standing Committee, and member of the Yangjiang Municipal Party Committee. There are other arrangements. The report stated that Lin Daoping will be demoted.
The banyan tree is one of the important landscapes in Guangzhou, and it is also an excellent native tree species in South China. It has good shading effect and is widely used in gardens and road greening.
According to a report from Caixin Weekly in July this year, since the end of 2020, many banyan trees have been removed and replaced by poinciana trees. The remaining banyan trees have been combed, and the trunks and aerial roots below 3 meters have to be cut off. The bushes under the banyan trees were also cleared, and a large number of lawns appeared in the original tree-lined park.
According to informed sources, the banyan trees on both sides of Guangzhou roads have been replaced in large numbers in the past two years. According to Caixin’s rough statistics, more than 4,300 trees are planned to be removed or felled on the seven main roads, including more than 3,000 banyan trees. One of the east-west routes plans to remove more than 1,000 trees, including more than 900 banyan trees.
The report said that this move caused social controversy. On June 11, 2021, a citizen commented in the People’s Park that there are fewer trees and fewer people, “mainly because they are too dry.” Another citizen believes that “it is now more like a square, not a park.” After the banyan tree became a hot spot of public opinion, the citizens of Guangzhou carried out the “Protection of the Banyan Tree” in various forms.
Li Min, deputy secretary-general of the Guangdong Society of Landscape Architecture and a professor at South China Agricultural University, said that “relocation is to make it sound better.” There is almost no essential difference between migration and felling of large trees in practice. “These old trees with broken hands and feet are basically equivalent to a pile of firewood. Even if they barely survive, they will lose their original ecological benefits.”
In March of this year, the removal of 48 old banyan trees in Guangzhou Xinhe Pubi Road Park caused controversy again. Lu Media reported that from the continuous cutting of 48 banyan trees in Xinhepu in March, the entire row of banyan trees not only in the streets of Beijing Road, Yuejiang Road, and Changgang Road in the Lao San District was pryed away, and then they were “big plastic surgery” in People’s Park. , And recently, on both sides of the Pearl River, Binjiang Road and Yanjiang Road, large banyan trees over 50 years old are inevitable.
Editor in charge: Xu Menger
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