The two ancient Chinese relics, a rat's head and a rabbit's head, were auctioned off on February 25, for 14 million euros (17.92 million U.S. dollars) each in Christie's sale of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge in the Grand Palace of Paris.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) declared their statements successively that China denies the illegal possession of the looted cultural relics and will continue to retrieve the looted and illegally exported cultural relics in accordance with relevant international conventions and Chinese laws.
This case undoubtedly harms China’s cultural rights, interests and national sentiment, but it also brings something considerable to us.
Legal Means is not enough for Retrieving Cultural Relics
To retrieve cultural relics by legal means is a reasonable but tough way, which mainly depends on the situation of illegally exported cultural relics and the restriction and application of the international convention. The bronze heads were looted by invading Anglo-French expedition army in the 19th century, when the invaders burned down the royal garden of Yuanmingyuan in Beijing. Since they were handed to many different people with the passage of the time, it is hard to identify the ownership of these bronze heads through legal means.
The international convention is a “gentleman’s agreement” which doesn’t have compulsory binding force to the signatory countries, allowing them the excuse to refuse to return the looted cultural relics.
Although some lost cultural relics have been retrieved by International Convention in recent years, however, compared to the tremendous amount of loot and illegally traded antiques from China, Italy, Greece and Egypt, it’s just a drop in the bucket.
Power from the Public
Christie's auction has aroused public attention both at home and abroad. With more and more people aware that legal means is not effective enough to retrieve looted or lost cultural relics, an awareness of cultural protection is emerging from civilians.
Before the bronze heads were auctioned, many overseas Chinese protested to the auctioning of cultural relics looted during wars and a group of Chinese lawyers filed a lawsuit against this auction. It also aroused Chinese netizens’ indignation. An online survey conducted by ifeng.com showed more than 90 percent of the netizens want the bronzes back.
These actions of common people are related to the responsibility of patriotism. It not only criticizes the aggressive wars and the action of auctioning looted cultural relics but also present the Chinese people’s appeal of strengthening the protection of cultural relics.
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