Fifteen Chinese antiques were stolen from The British Museum on 29 October, and this was the second robbery of Chinese antiques in world famous museum within the month. The Special Fund for Saving China's Overseas Antiques stated on November 3 that China expressed its great concern over the whereabouts of China's overseas antiques and strongly condemned the illegal robbery of antiques.

The spokesperson with The British Museum said on November 1 that the fifteen antique items were missing during its open hours to the public. On October 4, thieves stole nine Chinese objects from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The Associate Press of British Newspapers noted that private collectors behind the scenes possibly manipulated the two robberies of Chinese antiques and the investigation is currently underway.

Being the first non-governmental organization for saving China's cultural relics, the Special Fund for Saving China's Overseas Antiques declared in a statement that they attached great concern to the whereabouts of China's cultural relics and felt rather disturbed over the lost antique items of historical values. Meanwhile, they also strongly condemned the illegal robbery of cultural relics global wide.

According to the principle of "site protection" put forward by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), they called for the safely return of China's antique items to China, the original owner. China lost a variety of cultural relics and the reason for the loss differed in many ways. It was necessary for China to take back its lost cultural relics according to their various circumstances through safely return, purchase and so on.

The statistics released by the UNESCO showed that the total member of China's antique items lost overseas had exceeded 10 million, among which 1.63 million were housed by museums in different countries worldwide.

Among the fifteen stolen items, most of them were jewelry and adornments including jade hairpins and earrings dating back from the 700 to 1400, said the spokesperson with The British Museum.

 (People's Daily Online November 6, 2004)