In the shining Epang Palace, jade and silver were said to be treated as little more than stones, and pearls were like sands. Historical texts indicate that wealth taken from six kingdoms coalesced into a mighty palace during the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), where rivers flowed beneath arched bridges, connecting the gilded rooms that housed scores of concubines and eunuchs.

Certainly, that's the romanticized image of the ancient Epang Palace, residence of Qin Shihuang (259BC-210BC), the first emperor to unite China. Unfortunately, the truth of the palace was lost to history when it was destroyed by invaders in 220.

That was the first time the Epang Palace was destroyed. Soon it will be destroyed again, but few will lament the loss of the dilapidated "fake" palace that was built 13 years ago at a cost of 200 million yuan ($32.16 million). This reconstructed "palace" stands just 300 meters away from the ruins of the original, in a suburban area of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.

Despite this abject failure, it will rise again for the third time in the form of a "relic park" that will protect the ruins at the original site.

"The reconstructed palace was crudely made, it attracted some people in its early years, but tourists stopped coming," Zhang Lei, an official working at the press office of Fengdong New district, in suburban Xi'an, told the Global Times.

"It was a failure and the local government doesn't want it," said Lei Yingkui, the owner of the tourism company which built the imitation.

It's hardly a unique case. According to Ruan Yisan, an urban planning professor at Tongji University, there are replicated historical sites in all of the 119 nationally recognized historic cultural cities.

"Most of them turned out to be unattractive and were consigned to being destroyed," Ruan told the Global Times.

Wasted money

Singers, dancers and actors who played emperors and eunuchs at the rebuilt palace were sent away in May, when the demolition notice was sent, as were the 12 copper statues that stood guard. 

Lei admitted that the feedback from most tourists indicated that they were far from captivated. He said that they felt modern actors pretending to be emperors or eunuchs in a poorly decorated palace seemed more like a joke than a real historic experience.

 "Imitation sites are misleading. It is hard for modern workers to use the same materials and construction skills that people used in ancient times, especially when they are eager to rush the project for material rewards," Ruan said.

Even though the artificial sites could be realistic, they do not contain the same intrinsic historic and cultural significance, he added.

In Guangzhou, an imitation of an ancient street called Shufang Street, filled with Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) style buildings, was built in 2010 to decorate the city as it was preparing to hold the 2010 Asian Games, at a cost of more than 20 million yuan.

One year later, before many of those buildings were complete, the local government ordered that the buildings be torn down to make way for commercial developments.

"It was a total waste of taxpayers' money," Guangzhou citizen Cheng Shijia, 72, who lives opposite the street, told the Global Times, adding that many ancient buildings were destroyed during periods of conflict and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76).

Like Guangzhou, many cities want to restore the cultural relics they possessed before. The government in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, even built a replica of a well-known Buddhist temple in 2008 but demolished it in 2011.

"People didn't like it, so it failed to generate the profit or fame that it was expected to," an anonymous official from the Sichuan Cultural Relics Administration told the Global Times Tuesday.

Short-term pursuits

The Nanhai God Temple, a traditional temple built in 594 and dedicated to a god of the sea, was refurbished and repaired in 1989 after being damaged during the Cultural Revolution, according to Huang Yingfeng, who manages the temple.

But later, structures surrounding the temple were demolished and highways, ship-building factories and a power plant sprung up. "Making way for development was inevitable," said Huang.

"A structure's value can only be fully realized together with its surroundings. Without which, the temple standing alone, is like a handicapped person," said Ruan.

Though cultural relics can stand in the way of urbanization, they also offer the opportunity for political gain.

In the 90s, Shaanxi Province made a push to develop the tourism in Xi'an, given its long history and rich cultural resources. Many of these projects succeed, so when Lei came to the site of Epang Palace with local officials and a team of experts from the Shaanxi provincial administration, he trusted their analysis.

"They said it was a brilliant idea to restore a grand palace, but today they say it was a crude and illegal construction occupying the original site," said Lei, who said he later felt he had been used as a tool to help the local government score political points.

Zhang admitted that the new project to build a relic park around the real site of the Epang Palace by the local government had made Lei's counterfeit Epang Palace redundant.

"It was a vicious circle. The government wanted to develop the economy which destroyed cultural heritage, but regretted it, so they spent a lot to build artificial sites which turned out to be failures," a staff member surnamed Li from the Shaanxi cultural relic administration said.

Leave well enough alone

Whether they are sacrificing cultural relics for economic development or rebuilding them for fame and money, they are not truly protecting China's relics, said Liu Zheng, a professor with the China Cultural Relics Association.

"Greek people never try to fix their ancient ruins," said Ruan, who has been suggesting relics be left alone.

However, in China, most relics are made of wood or clay, which are very difficult to preserve if left under the sun, so it is not right to just leave the ruins, said Liu.

"We should preserve them without changing them. Instead of renovating them and providing a brand new look, we should show respect to the age of the building and leave traces of those years on them," said Liu, adding that damage, rather than brand new paintings, gives people a real impression of history.