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 | Wednesday, May 03, 2000, updated at 12:16(GMT+8) | ||||||||||||
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Looted Relics Return HomeFour precious Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) cultural relics, looted from the Yuanmingyuan in 1860 and auctioned in Hong Kong despite urges from the Chinese Government and protests from Hong Kong residents, have all been recovered for China at exorbitant prices.A hexagonal porcelain vase was auctioned by Sotheby's for US$2.4 million to the Beijing Cultural Relics Co yesterday, while a bronze tiger head was sold for US$1.8 million to an unidentified Chinese buyer. In a previous auction by Christie's on Sunday, a bronze monkey head and a bronze ox head were purchased by the Beijing-based China Poly Group for approximately US$2 million. The two relics will soon be exhibited in Poly's art museum together with several hundred pieces of rare Chinese antiques bought by Poly overseas during the past few years. Relics experts believed the three bronze animal heads were taken from the same water clock in the imperial garden that featured the heads of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac. The four auctioned items were looted by the British and French invading troops from Yuanmingyuan (known as Old Summer Palace) in a northwestern suburb of Beijing during the Second Opium War in 1860. Auctions of the looted Chinese antiques not only stirred rage among Chinese relics experts and Hong Kong residents, but also prompted legal concerns over relics protection measures. Demonstrations were staged outside the auction sites by Hong Kong residents chanting slogans like "return the national treasure to the motherland." Ten days before the auction started, the State Bureau of Cultural Relics informed the two auction houses that the looted relics belonged to China and asked them to cancel the auction. The bureau issued a second warning on Saturday. However, the two firms ignored the urges and claimed the antique sales did not violate any laws in Hong Kong. Chinese relics experts refuted their claims, saying international laws state that looted relics belong to their home countries and China has the right to take them back according to international customs. China joined an international convention on cultural relics in 1995 which supports all countries' endeavours to recover relics looted or lost in wars, regardless of when the war took place or when the request was made to return the relics. Yesterday in Hong Kong, Convenor of the Special Administrative Region's Executive Council Leung Chun-ying criticized the two auction companies for engaging in commercial activities which grossly insulted the Chinese people on a wholesale scale. "After all, the auction items were national treasures looted by foreign troops during the most humiliating invasion of China," Leung said. Ta Kung Pao yesterday quoted an anonymous official as saying that the loopholes in Hong Kong's relevant laws had been taken advantage of by relics traffickers for decades.
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