LOST CULTURE: A child playing at a demolished site in Shanghai yesterday. China's rush to urbanise has seen many architectural treasures being destroyed on a scale compared with the Cultural Revolution of 40 years ago. -- AP

'(Some local officials) are totally unaware of the value of cultural heritage,' Vice-Construction Minister Qiu Baoxing told an international conference in Beijing on urban culture and city planning, according to a report in the English-language China Daily newspaper.

Mr Qiu said the havoc at historical sites matched that of the Mao Zedong-era Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, in which symbols of the country's pre-revolutionary era were targeted for demolition in the name of progress.

He also attacked the 'blind pursuit of large, new and exotic' buildings by some local governments, which has seen many of the country's cityscapes totally transformed during the past 15 years of spectacular economic growth.

'This is leading to a poor sight - many cities have a similar construction style. It is like a thousand cities having the same appearance,' he lamented.

Another official, Mr Tong Mingkang of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, also slammed local officials who replaced cultural sites with fake relics.

'It is like tearing up an invaluable painting and replacing it with a cheap print,' he said, according to the report.

Culture Minister Sun Jiazheng said in December last year that many local governments were only interested in exploiting the sites for profit rather than protecting them, the Xinhua news agency reported at the time.

In a bid to curb the power of political rivals, Chairman Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s and the 10-year Cultural Revolution in 1966, ostensibly to modernise Chinese society.

Both resulted in disastrous economic and social legacies.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE