China pledges to retrieve more lost cultural artifacts

BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China will keep working to bring home more of its cultural artifacts lost overseas, according to the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA).

Deputy director Guan Qiang has said that experts will further research the origins of these cultural relics to gather more evidence to support their return.

Deeper, more flexible international cooperation is needed and the use of various platforms and mechanisms will be encouraged to facilitate this process, said the official at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

Guan also highlighted China's commitment to its international obligations in this field. The country will encourage dialogue between countries of origin and those currently holding displaced artifacts, said the official.

Since the Opium War in the 1840s, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been displaced due to war and illicit trade, according to the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, a domestic non-profit organization.

The Chinese government set out to recover these artifacts since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The country now has government-to-government agreements with 27 countries, including Peru, Italy, Greece, Türkiye, the United States and Australia, to combat the theft, looting, and illegal export of cultural relics.

Thanks to these frameworks, China has successfully recovered more than 1,900 cultural relics in 43 batches, Guan noted.

This year alone, the country has reclaimed the stolen "Feng Xingshu Gui," a bronze ritual vessel from the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046-771 BC), along with 38 ancient artworks from the United States and 14 artifacts from Argentina.