Senior officials of north China's Hebei Province vowed on Tuesday to crack down on activities damaging the Great Wall.
Illegal construction has seriously damaged the UNESCO-listed structure, said Jiang Deguo, deputy provincial governor, at a conference on Tuesday.
People who scrawl graffiti on the Wall may be detained by police, and those who deliberately damage it will be prosecuted, added Yin Dianjun, a senior official with the provincial public security department.
The Great Wall was built from the third century BC to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The Ming wall stretches over 1,338 km in Hebei and 8,800 km across the country.
Less than 10 percent of the Wall is considered well-preserved, while about 30 percent has disappeared, according to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
