Plans for exclusive club in forbidden city scrapped after outcry

BEIJING'S Forbidden City has scotched plans for an exclusive club inside the historic imperial palace complex that raised hackles at a time when China faces public anger over a growing wealth gap.

State media reported recently that an elite club for the super-rich was being planned for a section of the sprawling complex at the heart of China's capital, which is now operated as a vast museum.

Reports had said club memberships were being offered for the princely sum of one million yuan (S$190,750).

News of the plan went viral online, with Internet users criticising it as a sign of a creeping return to the feudalism that prevailed in imperial China for thousands of years until the 1911 collapse of the Qing Dynasty. 

Source: Relax.com.sg