This Day, That Year

Item from Jan 20, 1983, in China Daily: By early summer ... the area around Tian'anmen Gate ... will have a colorful new look. By then ... the work refurbishing the moat in front of Tian'anmen will be completed. The south banks of the moat had begun to collapse with age. To repair them properly, the cement reviewing stands had to be dug out ... The project will cost some 700,000 yuan. The moat was dug during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), more than 100 years before the gate itself was built in 1421. It is part of an extensive water network, much of it now underground.

The moat surrounds the Forbidden City in central Beijing and forms an integral part of the capital's royal sights.

But it was only in 1998, nearly five decades after the founding of New China, that authorities carried out one of the largest desilting operations for the 3.5 km-long artificial waterway.