Mosquitoes, rats, flies and cockroaches beware: China is out to exterminate you. Beijing is determined to rid the city centre of pests that could spoil celebrations for the 60th anniversary of Communist Party rule.
In an echo of the eradication campaign waged by Mao Zedong in the 1950s, the authorities have announced plans to eliminate any potential health threats before the National Day festivities on October 1. Utmost efforts must be made to keep dignitaries and other participants “free from epidemics and bites”.
A security campaign has also been started in the capital, with authorities pledging to build a moat around it.
Zeng Xiaofan, the official in charge of disease prevention and control for Beijing, said: “Rats could eat electric cables and mosquitoes could bite and annoy people gathering in the [Tiananmen] square on October 1 to celebrate the 60th anniversary.”
Unlike Chairman Mao’s 1958 Four Pests campaign, in which millions of Chinese were encouraged to kill rats, flies, mosquitoes and sparrows, this campaign will be carried out by specialists.
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Four unannounced night-time extermination sweeps have been carried out around Tiananmen Square — the plaza that will be at the centre of the October 1 parade — and among the sprawling palaces and gardens of the Forbidden City to the north.
Red banners appeared along Beijing alleys yesterday, exhorting the public to support the campaign. One of the slogans read: “Eradicate the four pests, stress hygiene. Cleanly, cleanly welcome National Day!”
This will be the fifth campaign against pests in Beijing, although sparrows have not been included on the list since 1958.
The birds were regarded as a threat because they were believed to peck at grain, threatening the harvests in a country struggling to overcome a famine.
People were told to bang pots and pans, make noises and wave flags on bamboo poles to frighten the birds. Nests were destroyed, eggs broken and nestlings killed.
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As their population fell the insects that the birds had eaten previously multiplied. Locusts swarmed across farmland, serving only to exacerbate the famine, in which about 28 million people died.
The most recent clean-up drive was before the Olympic Games last year.
Battling vermin
— In 2007 a suburb in Luoyang, western China, put a bounty on dead flies. More than 1,000 yuan was paid for 2,000 flies on the first day of the scheme
— The US banned imports of Chinese Christmas trees in 2005 over fear of pests
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— After the Sars outbreak China culled thousands of pet civet cats in Guangdong province, suspecting a link with the virus
— In southern Sichuan bees were wiped out by insecticides so pear trees now have to be pollinated by hand
— As far back as AD1,000 frogs were under government protection so that they could eat pests
Sources: Reuters, AP, Pest Control Methods in Ancient Chinese Agriculture by Peng Shijiang