Find way to revive time-honored brands

While the local government may take credit for modernizing Shanghai in just two decades, including building an impressive skyline and an extensive subway network, it has failed miserably in reviving the time-honored brands that distinguish Shanghai from other Chinese cities.

This is truly ironic when these government leaders often talk about nurturing local brands as a way to thrive in the tough market place. Those time-honored brands, built with the hard work of generations of private businessmen, have been destroyed under the watch of our generation.

The local government leaders, unfortunately, seem to firmly believe that relocating those time-honored stores from their prime locations and giving these spaces to more profitable international brands such as H&M, Gap and Uniqlo make more business sense.

Nanjing Road, dubbed China's No 1 shopping street, was once home to more than 60 time-honored stores, but now only a dozen still operate there. The street looks no different from the main shopping streets in other Chinese cities.

After bulldozing much of the old neighborhoods in the rush to modernize, Shanghai has been making great efforts to try and salvage its historical landmarks, such as the distinctive stone-arched shikumen houses and old factory buildings, yet it has not found the way to revive those time-honored stores and brands.

Efforts in the past few years to relocate some time-honored stores to a section on Shaanxi Road have proved to be unsuccessful as these stores no longer have their original identity and vitality.

Shanghai must find a better way to revive these time-honored brands. Trashing these great historical assets with a wrong relocation and expansion strategy is even worse than keeping them in the museum. That, at least, leaves a good memory.

But I doubt if the local leaders know what Shanghai is losing with the destruction of these time-honored brands.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA.