China denies govt involvment in relics bidding

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-06 13:44

BEIJING -- Head of China's cultural heritage bureau on Friday denied government involvement in the bidding of two looted Chinese relics at Christie's auction in Paris, saying the bidder was acting privately.

"The bidding was completely a personal behavior," Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH), told Xinhua.

Shan said the cultural heritage department had no idea of the bidding until the bidder identified himself Monday.

"The SACH had nothing to do with it," Shan said on the sidelines of annual session of the 11th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body.

China had tried repeatedly to dissuade Christie's from auctioning the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) bronze rabbit and rat heads sculptures, which were looted from Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, by Anglo-French allied forces during the Second Opium War in 1860. But the efforts failed.

The two relics were auctioned for 14 million euros (17.92 million U.S. dollars) each last week. In response, China's cultural heritage authorities ordered strict checks of all exports and imports by Christie's in China.

On Monday, Cai Mingchao, a Chinese antiques collector, identified himself as the winning bidder. But he said that he would not pay because the two relics might not be able to enter China following SACH's strict checks.

Shan said the new order only applies to the cultural relics that Christie's submitted to the Chinese cultural departments for entry or exit checks and it does not limit the return of looted Chinese cultural relics.

Shan also denied reports that Christie's once suggested the Chinese government buy the two relics at a low price.

Christie's did say it was willing to cooperate with the Chinese government, but it never offered to sell the two relics to China at a low price, Shan said.

The auction triggered wide protest in China. But Christie's argued that the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation held legal ownership of the fountainheads.

SACH said China would not accept what it called the illegal possession of the two sculptures and would "continue to seek the return of the sculptures by all means in accord with related international conventions and Chinese laws."

Even though efforts to stop the auction have failed, Shan said such efforts have aroused public concern over and participation in the retrieving of lost cultural relics and would have a positive impact on similar efforts in the future.

He said China will improve the protection and management of cultural relics and tighten border control to prevent cultural relics from being illegally taken out of China.

The government has already set up 14 offices across the country for the scrutiny of cultural relics exports, he said.

More efforts will also be made to collect information of China's lost relics, including those from the Yuanmingyuan, said Shan, a member of the CPPCC National Committee.

He said China will also improve legislation on the crackdown on the stealing, illegal excavation and smuggling of cultural relics, so as to provide legal support for efforts to retrieve lost relics from overseas.

Diplomatic measures and international cooperation will also be strengthened to facilitate the return of relics illegally taken out of China, said Shan.

An estimated 1.64 million Chinese relics are owned by foreign museums, according to SACH figures. Even more than that are owned by private collectors. A great number were looted, stolen and smuggled out of China between the 1860s and 1949 when the country was subjected to colonial invasion and civil wars.