Wonderland was going to beat Tokyo Disneyland — it sat as a ruin for 15 years

In 1998, Reignwood Group — the conglomerate built by Thai-Chinese businessman Yan Bin, later also known for bringing Red Bull to China — signed a land-requisition agreement with five villages in Changping District, on Beijing's northern edge, to build what it billed as Asia's largest amusement park, bigger than Tokyo Disneyland. The project was listed as a Beijing municipal and National Tourism Administration key project, on the strength of a projected 3 million annual visitors and roughly ¥6 billion in yearly revenue.

Construction stopped in 1998, the same year it started, after a dispute over land compensation and a shrinking allotment of usable land from the villages. Reignwood's initial investment of roughly ¥400 million was left sunk in an unfinished shell — half-built roller coasters, a castle facade, and empty foundations. Rather than being resolved, demolished, or resold, the site sat exactly as it was for the next fifteen years, fenced off and decaying.

The abandoned park became one of the best-known ruins in China, photographed by foreign and domestic journalists and urban explorers and nicknamed one of the country's 'ghost cities' in the press, its rusted castle gate and flooded moat visible from the road. It was finally demolished in May 2013. The site was later redeveloped, in partnership with Hualian Group, into the Badaling Outlets shopping center, which opened for trial business in June 2015 — a fraction of the ambition, and the revenue, the original park had promised.