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By APD writer Gong Chen
China’s national watchdog over cultural relics recently announced that the database of stolen cultural relics will be established to publish the information of Chinese lost cultural relics. And it will stipulate that these stolen cultural relics cannot be auctioned in China.
This rule came into being in the wake of a bronze relic believed to have been looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 sold at auction in Canterbury, Kent on April 11 (local time) for 410,000 pounds ($582,000), despite protests from China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage (also known as SACH), which said that it strongly opposed and condemned the sale of looted property.
People stand outside Canterbury Auction Galleries after the sale there of a bronze water vessel, known as the Tiger Ying, April 18, 2018.
The water vessel, called a Ying, is a bronze container with tiger-shaped decorations and carved inscriptions, which dated back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (1100-771 BC).
A bronze water vessel, known as Tiger Ying, is up for auction in Kent.
Hajni Elias, a Chinese art and cultural historian who helped research the origins of the Tiger Ying, described it as "special and unequalled".
"We cannot underestimate the wealth and sophistication of the late Zhou culture that created such an outstanding bronze vessel," she said. "Only men of high status, such as kings, his nobles and officials were able to obtain them."
The ransacking of the Old Summer Palace has been described by Chinese academics as a symbol of shame for people in China for many years.
"We don't agree any organization, home or abroad, should take part in the auction," said a statement released by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
"We also call for people with a humanitarian spirit to commonly boycott the auctions of cultural relics that were lost in illicit ways."
Apart from the condemnation of British auction house for ignoring international laws and the feelings of Chinese people, SACH will react by restricting its cultural exchange and cooperation as well as cultural business with and in China.
For years, a number of home organizations and individuals are willing to participate in the auctions of cultural relics. However, these patriotic acts are not in favor of China’s reclaim stolen relics from overseas. More non-government efforts get involved, the easier the auction houses will make sensations in the name of patriotic sentiments. Once the items were bought back at a higher price, it would mean the second victimization to the Chinese people.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
