The Great Wall has not be particularly revered in China. The memory of forced conscription (slave labor) for an Imperial pet project new really left the populace. This was of course exacerbated during the Cultural Revolution when all symbols of the old system where supressed, abolished, or destroyed - by this time the Great Wall had already fallen into disrepair and it was left that way. Today, the state and their captured middle and upper classes leverage it as grand cultural achievement (which it objectively is) and of course a consumerist boon from tourism and culture diplomacy / propaganda. But to the migrant worker on an excavator being pressed to cut time and cost, an errant and unused section of the wall (and most of the wall is still not actively maintain) is just and only pile rocks in the way of a work quota…
Discussion
The modern Chinese state itself has a long history of bulldozing cultural artifacts in the name of progress this has been the experience of the "hutong” neighborhoods in Beijing and similar "traditional" walk-up neighborhoods in Shanghai. But they’ve been knocking stuff down and building over the old foundations for 5000 years - the average old building simply may not have the same importance as we might assign it in our minds