To ensure an absolutely flawless G20 summit, the Chinese government took everyone living in Hangzhou and sent them to Huangshan.
Or at least that’s what the pictures might make you think. At 4 p.m. on Friday a total of 49,009 tourists were scaling the scenic “Yellow Mountain” in nearby Anhui province — 42,626 of those were Hangzhou residents who all received free tickets, Sina reports.
This was actually just one small part of the government mandated mass exodus of Hangzhou, which turned a bustling metropolis of 6 million people into a veritable ghost town to ensure the safety of world leaders visiting for the G20 summit. A truly incredible feat to say the least. To do this, Chinese officials “convinced” over one-third of the city’s population to leave town for a week-long public holiday. Factories were closed, construction sites were shut down and apartment blocks near the G20 meeting place were vacated.
So, while things may have been eerily quiet on the streets of Hangzhou around the normally packed West Lake, they were less on the trails of Huangshan and in the town below where hotel and tour operators had to deal with well over 100,000 visitors. During the first five days of September, Huangshan received 193,233 visitors, 157,688 from Hangzhou.
Maybe this is the real reason why the world’s longest and tallest glass-bottomed bridge closed down?
[Images via Sina]
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