China has at least 10 White Houses, four Arcs de Triomphe, a couple of Great Sphinxes and at least one Eiffel Tower. Now a version of London’s Tower Bridge in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou has rekindled a debate over China’s rush to copy foreign landmarks. This week, photos of the bridge were posted online by news outlets. One headline proclaimed: “Suzhou’s Amazing ‘London Tower Bridge’: Even More Magnificent Than the Real One.”

Indeed. Suzhou’s urban planners had clearly stepped up their game. The bridge, completed in 2012, has four towers — compared with the two spanning the Thames in London.

Suzhou has joined the scramble of Chinese cities in recent years to erect clones of famous foreign structures. Not everyone approves. Online comments about the Suzhou bridge have been scathing. “Piracy!” wrote one.

“Embarrassing,” wrote another. Li Yingwu, of the OAD architecture firm in Beijing, called the bridge outright plagiarism. “I was really surprised that it got built in Suzhou, because it has preserved its culture really well,” Li said. “It shows that local officials lack confidence in their own culture.”

A report on JSChina.com.cn, a news site of the Jiangsu provincial government, read, “We don’t have any reason to give a thumbs-up to the replicated iconic building.” The copy, it said, would impede the promotion of Chinese culture. According to Cheng Taining, an architect at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, many officials see foreign designs as shortcuts to achieve modernity and worldliness.

The criticism Suzhou bridge has been receiving is in line with President Xi Jinping’s calls for a greater emphasis on China’s cultural legacy. In December, at the Association of Literature and Art and the Chinese Writers’ Association, Xi called on artists to “consolidate confidence in Chinese culture.”

The version of the Tower Bridge is one of 56 copycat bridges in Suzhou.

Others include versions of the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia and the Alexandre III Bridge in Paris. The structures were in a bid to brand Xiangcheng district as an international trade and finance centre. (TNN)