An investor in a company that rents and is restoring a temple near the Forbidden City in Beijing has rejected state media criticism that it is improperly operating a private club on the historic site.
Last week Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said that the Songzhu Temple and the nearby Zhizhu Temple were being used as clubs and private restaurants, despite new regulations barring private clubs from public sites. Those comments were widely carried in the Chinese state news media and some foreign news outlets, including The New York Times.
Temple Restaurant Beijing operates in the main Zhizhu Temple, while the Songzhu Famous Courtyard, a separate restaurant, occupies parts of both the Zhizhu and Songzhu temple sites.
Lin Fan, an investor in Temple Republic, a Hong Kong-registered company whose Beijing subsidiary, Dong Jing Yuan, rents the Zhizhu Temple, called the Xinhua report — which did not name the restaurant at the temple but included images of it — unfair. He said that Temple Restaurant Beijing, which serves French-influenced cuisine, is a properly licensed business that is open to the public and has not engaged in any illegal operations.
Temple Restaurant Beijing is not owned by Dong Jing Yuan, but has a contract with it to operate a restaurant on the grounds.
“We’ve put years of hard work to restore this place,” said Mr. Lin, a Chinese film industry veteran. “As you can see, many of the architectural details on our buildings are the same as Lama Temple’s. We want this to be an important cultural heritage destination for visitors.”
Before its restoration, which Temple Republic began in December 2007, the temple site had been used as a factory and later for recycling and making counterfeit DVDs. The restaurant opened in 2011. An upscale hotel is expected to open soon on the temple grounds.
Dong Jing Yuan, the subsidiary of Temple Republic, has a 21-year lease with the Beijing Buddhist Association, which owns Zhizhu Temple, and the Mudan Group, a state-owned enterprise that manufactures televisions. The Mudan Group formerly occupied the Zhizhu Temple and has the title to use the site for several decades.
Mr. Lin said the terms of the lease gave him and two founders of Temple Republic the right “to restore the site as well as the right to utilize and operate it” — including as a site for hotels, restaurants and special events.
He added that Temple Restaurant Beijing enforces a 10:30 p.m. quiet policy to limit activities on its premises that might disturb neighbors. The complex has seen an increase in visitors since it received a Unesco award for cultural heritage conservation in 2012 and opened an art gallery that is free to the public, he said.
A representative of the Songzhu Famous Courtyard, a separate business that abuts the main Zhizhu Temple compound on its north side, could not be reached for comment, and a security guard barred a reporter from entering.
According to a regulation issued in November by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the operation of private clubs is banned at religious and historic sites, parks and other facilities in China. The rule also bars businesses from modifying historic and religious sites for the use of high-end fitness, recreational and entertainment facilities that operate with a “membership system.”
The Songzhu Temple, which was constructed in the early 18th century at the behest of the Kangxi emperor, was looted during the Boxer Rebellion, in 1900, when statues and other artifacts were stolen. The main temple in the Zhizhu compound dates to the Qing Dynasty. In the 1950s, religious activities at both temples were blocked, and the sites were converted into factories. Both temples were declared cultural relic protection sites by the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage in 1984.