Chinese approach in masterplanning the city walls preservation. The case study of Zhaoqing ancient city centre in perspective with the Italian experience

Among the first countries for World Heritage sites number, China has just shown the concerning in heritage conservation recently in XX century. Since the Maoist period, the country went through many pressures by fast process of urbanization, rapid population growing and also moments of inexplicable destruction. It just started having attention after the reforms supported by Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping, then the participation of China at the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) in 1985, marked its entrance in an expert and foreigner community and implicitly declare the acceptance of international principles on conservation. The improvement of Chinese architecture heritage conservation policy is very encouraged but China still need to promote coordinated programs between cities, in order to better relocate its top-down financial support. The wall of Zhaoqing together with others Chinese cities walls are subjected for World Heritage promoted program. Choosing Zhaoqing as our study case means we are learning, from a Western perspective, the Chinese heritage issues, in order to create a supporting base for debate the differences with the Italian experience.