Fighting the Lies on China’s "Stolen’ Cultural Relics

They are Laughing at US

There is a very long, but interesting text about the lies told by Chinese officials to attempt to get the trading of Chinese antiquities banned. It seems their hands are not clean either (Peter Neville-Hadley, "China’s ‘stolen’ cultural relics: why the numbers just don’t add up"  post-magazine 9 Jun 2017).

More than 150 years after British and French troops sacked and razed the Summer Palace, in Beijing, the incident is regularly revisited in the Chinese press. Articles usually appear around the October anniversary of the destruction, after yet another announcement of plans to catalog looted antiquities now overseas, or when Summer Palace items appear at foreign auction houses. As well as their incomplete and inaccurate descriptions of the palace and its destruction, these stories often contain transparently false accusations against foreign institutions holding collections of Chinese treasures, as well as unsustain­able claims of a legal right to them and demands for their uncompensated return. Even the most outrageously distorted claims often go unrefuted by timid governments and cultural institutions, perhaps for fear of complicating more important diplomatic negotiations or voiding loan arrangements and cultural exchanges. [...] Requests for a response to the Chinese campaign for repatriation of just about anything Chinese, with its insinuation that even legally purchased items are loot, are answered slowly, if at all.

This climate of fear should not be tolerated. After detailing a whole series of lies by the Chinese government intended to wrong-foot those who argue for a more international approach to cultural property, the text ends:

During the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Red Guards confiscated 613,600 antiques and jade pieces from their Beijing owners in just one month, according to the book Mao’s Last Revolution (2008), few of which were ever seen again. More than 70 per cent of 6,843 officially designated places of cultural or historical interest in the city were destroyed, and what remained or had been rebuilt of the Summer Palace sustained further damage. According to SACH itself, destruction in recent times has continued apace. Of about 225,000 historic sites in China on an incomplete list compiled in 1982, 30,995 had disappeared by 2009. That foreign destruction, looting and purchase of China’s cultural heritage is statistically insignificant compared with the towering catastrophe the Chinese have achieved for themselves does not provide any excuse for it. The Greeks, the Egyptians and the people of Benin in West Africa are among others pressing more honestly for the return of “stolen” antiquities, and engaging in debate. It’s long past time certain museums also stood up for their own reputations and against Chinese propaganda, and demanded that accurate and complete accounts be given of both historical events and existing collections.

The author is to be commended for all his hard work and incisive cutting through the slanty-eyed lying to reveal the truth about the Chinese campaign against western museums and collectors.The article is too long to adequately summarize here at this point in time, maybe I will return to some of the stories discussed later as they certainly do deserve to be better known among collectors.  We have an import restrictions MOU with these people which is based on lies like this. Collectors should make it their business to make sure the China MOU is cancelled or at least not prolonged.