Overseas cultural relics’ journey home
This wall panel sculpture of a guardian stolen from the tomb of Wang Chuzhi was returned to China from the US in 2001. Photo: FILE
China’s overseas cultural relics have been and still are an integral part of Chinese cultural heritage. Their destinies are a major concern of the Chinese people. China set the wheels in motion to begin reclaiming national treasures from abroad ever since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Since then, more than 150 thousand looted cultural relics have returned to the country in a variety of ways, through legal recourse, judicial procedures, rescue protection and donation.
In recent years, China has made remarkable progress in bringing its lost cultural relics home. As international cooperation deepens, China’s practices of reclaiming lost cultural relics have made headlines.
International cooperation
International cooperation is playing a more and more important role in seeking the return of lost cultural relics.
In June 1996, the tomb of Wang Chuzhi (863–923), a senior military governor of the late period of the Tang Dynasty and the Later Liang from the time of the Five Dynasties, located in Quyang County, Hebei Province, was stolen and the cultural relics from the tomb were resold many times, finally being lost abroad. In February 2000, a Chinese scholar noticed that a wall panel sculpture of a guardian advertised for sale in a Christie’s auction in the United States may have been from the tomb of Wang Chuzhi.
The sculpture was recognized by the Hebei Cultural Relics Bureau as being identical in material, technique, coloration and style to remaining panels found in situ when the tomb was excavated officially in 1995. The government immediately took action to seek the return of the sculpture.
In March 2000, the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) sent a diplomatic note to the United States Embassy in China to request the withdrawal of the object from auction and its return to China. Later, in response to the request, the United States brought a civil action in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking forfeiture of the mural pursuant to the Cultural Properties Implementation Act and authorized US Customs to seize the sculpture. After a one-year trial, a deed of settlement in the case provided that the sculpture would be returned to China. On May 26, 2001, the sculpture finally arrived in China. It was the first time China had successfully withdrawn its lost cultural relics from an international commercial auction.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ratified the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict in 1954 (the 1954 Hague Convention) and the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transport of Ownership of Cultural Property in 1970 (the UNESCO 1970 Convention) to combat illegal trade of cultural items. However, current international treaties cannot solve all issues of reclaimation. These conventions, signed during the late 20th century, can’t retroactively affect the illegal trade of cultural items that occurred before they came under effect. Moreover, these conventions are only binding on states that have subscribed to them. Therefore, nations often prefer negotiation and other possible approaches for reclaiming cultural relics, particularly for those issues of reclaimation beyond the effect of international conventions.
Until now, China has signed bilateral agreements or memoranda of understanding on preventing theft, clandestine excavations and illicit import and export of cultural property with 22 countries, including Peru, Italy, India, the Philippines, Chile, Greece, the USA, Turkey, Egypt, Australia and Switzerland.
Code of ethics
The Longmen Grottos, one of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art dating back to the Northern Wei Dynasty (386–533), suffered serious damage in the early 20th century and many carved stones were pillaged and transported overseas. The “arhat” sculpture, lost in the 1930s and once appearing at an auction in the West, was donated to the National Galley of Canada. After negotiations with China, the National Galley became aware of the details of how the sculpture was stolen and its cultural significance to China, finally returning it to China unconditionally in April 2001.
Some codes of ethics to meet requests for retrieving cultural items that were lost in the past have been established in the world. The core concepts of these codes are mainly derived from existing international conventions, aiming at maintaining cultural diversity and the sustainable development of human societies. These codes have greatly promoted the settlement of international disputes involved in the reclamation of lost cultural items.
The United Nations General Assembly, since the 1970s, has adopted many resolutions on the return or restitution of cultural property to their countries of origin, as an approach to urge state parties to return cultural items that were illicitly obtained. Upon the impact of these codes, many cases of consensus about the returning of lost cultural relics have been achieved among governments or individuals in recent years. For instance, the Dagukou bell (a big iron bell built in 1884 and originally placed at the Dagukou Fort in Tianjin), an artifact plundered by the Eight Power Allied Forces in 1900, was returned to China by the UK in 2005. In the same year, Italy gave the 1,700-year-old Obelisk of Axum back to Ethiopia.
In 2001, China reached an agreement with the Miho Museum in Japan, under which the Miho Museum agreed to send back to China a Northern Dynasty (386–581) Buddhist statue stolen from Shandong Province, while China allowed the museum to continue to display this statue for seven years as a borrower. This win-win cooperation not only solved the problem of the statue’s ownership but also benefitted the museum, providing the people from both countries the opportunity to appreciate this treasure.
More cases
During the 1990s, several tombs of the Qin State of the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BCE) in present-day Dabuzi Hill in Gansu Province were badly looted. A large number of relics were smuggled abroad. Dozens of pieces of ornamental gold foil from these tombs were held by two French antique collectors and were later donated to the Guimet Museum in Paris. China approached France for their return over the span of several years. French law forbids national museums to give away from their collections. Through careful negotiation, however, the two sides found a way out. The donations were withdrawn and the artifacts were returned to their previous private owners, removing legal barriers involved in their return to China. The return of the gold ornaments to China was the result of the joint efforts of the Chinese and French governments and individual collectors, setting a precedent for further restitutions.
In 2007, Italian authorities seized a large number of Chinese cultural relics and artworks suspected of being illegally trafficked. Learning of the discovery, the NCHA immediately contacted its Italian counterpart to begin the work to bring the relics home. After more than ten years of efforts, the Italian courts ruled that the relics should be returned to China. This is the largest cache of cultural relics to be returned to China in two decades, highlighting the joint efforts of these two distant countries in combating the illegal trade of cultural items. In March 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Italy and witnessed the return of 796 articles of lost Chinese cultural relics and artworks to China.
Cultural artifacts lost overseas in the past due to theft, clandestine excavations and illicit trade should be recovered through legal means. However, the reclamation of these relics still faces challenges such as legal and diplomatic barriers. There is still a long way to go before many overseas relics can return home, during which continued win-win cooperation will play a pivotal role.
The article was edited and translated from People’s Daily. Wang Yunxia is a professor from the Law School at Renmin University of China.
edited by REN GUANHONG