In response to the auction, SACH has ordered the Entry and Exit Administrative Departments for Cultural Heritage at all levels to "carefully check heritage items that Christie's seeks to import or export". The notice also covers agents and employees of Christie's.
Certificates of legal ownership must be provided for all items, the circular said. These documents must provide detailed information about the owners and the provenance (ownership history) of the items. Any items with inadequate or missing documentation will not be permitted to enter or leave the country.
The Entry-Exit Offices concerned are separate from Customs Administration. The offices should immediately report to the SACH and local police and customs offices if they find relics held by Christie's that might have been looted or smuggled, said the circular.
Chinese lawyers pledged to continue their efforts to bring two bronze sculptures back home. "We are working with a Parisian law partner to see what we can do next," said Liu Yang, a lawyer representing the group of 80 Chinese lawyers. "The deal hasn't been finalized yet – The buyer has two days to complete the transaction by paying the sum involved. So we're going to wait and see what will happen."
Although Macao gaming tycoon Stanley Ho Hung-sun bought the original bronze horse head from the Calm Sea Pavilion collection and donated it to the motherland in 2007, the managers of the Old Summer Palace said today that they do not encourage Chinese people to adopt this approach.
While expressing their anger and disappointment in a statement, the Old Summer Palace administration said they did not want Chinese people to buy back cultural relics for motherland, as this served only to legitimize the behavior of the "thieves". "We don't want the patriotism of Chinese people to be exploited by unscrupulous auctioneers," the statement said.
Following the sale, Bernard Brizay, French historian and journalist and the author of 1860: the Looting of the Summer Palace, told Xinhua that he could understand Chinese feelings about the two relics. "The two bronzes should be returned to China, no matter who got the bids," he said. Brizay also poured scorn on the suggestion by Pierre Berge that the bronzes could be traded to China in exchange for "human rights".
Another Chinese sympathizer agreed. "What a stupid, arrogant, and patronizing idea," he said. "It suggests that if you don't agree with a country's politics you should be entitled to loot its artifacts and exploit them for political blackmail."
(China.org.cn, Xinhua News Agency February 26, 2009)
