Changes

During the initial planning of World Showcase, two communist countries were interested in sponsoring their own pavilion- the Soviet Union and China. Unlike the USSR which wanted to integrate the ideals of communism into their pavilion, China was willing to showcase its history and culture without involving politicsideology. In order to help showcase the diversity of China, plans for the pavilion called for a CircleVision 360 film called [[Wonders of China ]] to be filmed. To create the movie, Disney entered negotiations with Chinese government over where they could and could not film. Although the company Disney was initially given tight filming restrictions, Disney the company and China eventually came to an agreement where Chinese film crews would film the countries’ more “sensitive” areas, where the government did not want westerners to go (such as Tibet and the Great Wall).

The China pavilion opened with the rest of World Showcase on October 1, 1982. When the pavilion opened it featured the CircleVision 360 film Wonders of China, as well as two shops, various gardens and a museum which would eventually house authentic Chinese artifacts. The center piece of the China pavilion is a replica of the Hall of Prayer and Hood Harvests, which is part of the Temple of Heaven complex located southeast of central Beijing. The replica found in the pavilion was built at ½ scale and designed so that guests must enter the Hall before seeing Wonder Wonders of China.

The first major addition to the China pavilion came in 1983 when the Yong Fendg Shangdian store opened. The following April, the House of the Whispering Willows gallery got fifty artifacts from the Republic of China's Palace Museum. Throughout the pavilions history, the contents housed within the gallery have changed. When the China pavilion opened in 1982, the land adjacent to it was initially earmarked for the planned Denmark pavilion. When plans for that pavilion fell through however, the China pavilion was expanded. As part of the mid 1980s expansion, on September 24, 1985, the counter service “Lotus Blossom Café” opened. This was followed by the opening of the table service restaurant “Nine Dragons” on October 23, 1985.

The next major change to hit the China pavilion came in 2003, when the CircleVision 360 film Wonders of China was updated. New scenes and narration were added to the movie, before it reopened to the public on as May 22, 2003 as "Reflections of China". In 2007 both of China's restaurants- the Nine Dragons and the Lotus Blossom Cafe were renovated. During the refurbishment, both facades were re-themed rethemed to make the restaurants appear more modern. A similar refurbishment then took place in 2011 for the pavilion’s shopping venues. At this time the stores were given new lighting and an updated color pallet.