Ｔｈｅ　Ｇｒｅａｔ　Ｗａｌｌ　Ｐａｓｔ　ａｎｄ　Ｐｒｅｓｅｎｔ.docVIP

Ｔｈｅ　Ｇｒｅａｔ　Ｗａｌｌ　Ｐａｓｔ　ａｎｄ　Ｐｒｅｓｅｎｔ 　　The Great Wall has been synonymous with China since travelers and adventurers first spoke of the Middle Kingdom to the rest of the world. 　　The absence of mention of the Great Wall in the famous travelogue, The Travels of Marco Polo, is a main reason to doubt its veracity. Later visitors unfailingly referred to this ancient Chinese engineering feat. The 16th century Portuguese writer Fernauo Mendes Pinto, for instance, commented on the governmental practice of sending prisoners to build the Great Wall. The Spanish missionary Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza also spoke of, “the Great Wall that is 500 leagues long” (1 league = 4.8 kilometers) in his The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China (1585 edition), clearly stating, “the emperor who ordered its building was Qinshihuang.” Ferdinand Verbiest (1623~1688), a Belgian missionary resident in China for more than 20 years, remarked that the combined seven wonders of the world could not compare to the Great Wall, and that descriptions published in Europe failed to convey its true magnificence. 　　As greater numbers of missionaries and envoys visited China from the 16th century onwards, its image in the West became inextricably linked with the Great Wall. By the 18th century era of enlightenment it had become the ultimate symbol of both China and the Chinese civilization. Mendoza and Voltaire regarded the Wall as an aspect of China’s strength; others later perceived it as a sign of weakness. But the Western fascination with the Great Wall has never abated. 　　 The Great Wall was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987, and voted one of the new Seven Wonders of the World in July 2007. 　　Despite its fame and glory, only2,000 kilometers or so of the 6,500-kilometer-long Great Wall still stands. Its rate of conservation is outpaced by organic erosion and human damage. 　　Premier Wen Jiabao signed a State Council decree on October 11, 2006 enforcing the Regulations on the Protect