How do you protect the Taj Mahal from industrial pollution and commercialization? How do you preserve Jaisalmer?s ancient buildings, given the daily wear and tear? Maybe Suzhou, an ancient city in east China, has the answer.

Known as the Venice of the East and Paradise on Earth, Suzhou is a 2,500-year-old city renowned for its network of canals, bridges, the low-roofed dwellings beside them, and ancient gardens. These classical gardens, which previously housed high officials, were opened to the public after liberation, and declared UN World Heritage Sites in 1997.

Gardens are relatively easy, though expensive, to maintain. The Suzhou garden bureau, which gets no state aid, has turned to private business for help. It has also given over a few smaller gardens to institutions, which means they are closed to the public.

But preserving the city?s ancient and unique character is far from easy. Yet, Suzhou has found a way to do that.

The city continues to occupy the same site it always did, and largely the same shape. Its waterways and streets were interwoven into a chessboard-like design; this has been preserved to a large extent. Black tiles and whitewashed walls remain the predominant colours of Suzhou, as they always have.

It comes as a shock, thus, to be told that the exquisite scenes along the Grand Canal cruise that runs through the city, are not ancient. They are as new as the old-style street lamps and quaint bus-stops, which look like traditional Chinese doorways. What is old is really old ? dilapidated and crumbling. What appears old and beautiful is actually new, only rebuilt in the old style.

The city aims to get World Heritage status for itself. Hence all new construction follows the old style; and no building can be more than 24 metres high. There have been more ruthless measures. Structures which do not fit into Suzhou?s traditional architectural style have had to go ? regular buildings that seem perfectly solid, though, of course, not beautiful. A lot of demolition has taken place along the Grand Canal to make way for landscaped gardens. The residents have all been relocated, as is happening all over China.

Eye on heritage

Every development in Suzhou is geared towards achieving World Heritage status, and making it a tourist city. One of its most beautiful old avenues, which houses rows of low dwellings on the banks of a river, has been restored and converted into a kind of open-air caf? street, where a cup of coffee costs 40 yuan.

Of course, not everything of the ancient city has survived. Suzhou?s waterways were once 82 km ? today, they are 35 km. Mao?s Great Leap Forward saw 100,000 Suzhouese filling up 12 waterways in just five days; others disappeared in the Cultural Revolution and the early years of Deng?s economic reform. Some of its old gates were torn down as ?feudal symbols? under Mao; and under Deng in the early Thirties, old walls were torn down as roads were widened to accommodate traffic and shopping malls.

Suzhou?s story would be incomplete without a mention of its economic status. In terms of foreign investment and GDP, the twin mantras in today?s China, it ranks very high indeed. Here again, it has retained its tradition; its waterways made it a prosperous trading centre even in ancient times.

This ?miracle? of preservation-cum-development has been achieved by what is officially known as the principle of ?One Body, two Wings?. The Body is the 14.5 km ancient city; the two Wings are the new industrial zones and townships stretching hundreds of miles around it, flattening centuries-old villages to build a ?paradise on earth for entrepreneurs?.

As in India, Chinese villagers have had to pay for what city-dwellers desire. Perhaps they are better off working in the industrial parks; who knows?