Cooperation urged to stop trade in relics
By Wang Shanshan (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-27 07:11

Cooperation urged to stop trade in relics
The signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) should be expedited
to
that effect, Shan Jixiang, director of the State Administration of
Cultural
Heritage (SACH), told China Daily.

"Among other countries, we want most to sign such an agreement with the
US.
We have worked on it for more than four years but the process has been
slow
recently," Shan said.

Shan was speaking on the sidelines of a signing of an MOU between the
SACH
and the Ministry of Culture of Greece towards cooperation in the
prevention
of the theft, illegal excavation and illicit trade of cultural property.

The two countries agreed to take the necessary measures in accordance
with a
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO)
convention in 1970.

According to the agreement, the parties will exchange information on
smuggled goods from the two countries that appear on the international
market.

They will also share information related to evaluating, registering,
retrieving and returning lost cultural properties when conducting
investigations.

The MOU also stipulates that signatories will collaborate in the return
of
important objects and parts or fragments of major cultural heritage
sites to
their country of origin.

Before Greece, China signed such MOUs with four countries - India,
Italy,
Peru and the Philippines. The first was signed with Peru in 2000.

China has always called for the US to sign such an MOU, and the request
has
been supported by American archaeologists and scholars, Shan said. The
US
State Department also held a hearing on China's request under the 1970
UNESCO convention.

But influential museum directors and collectors in the US have been
against
signing the MOU, and they have "held the incorrect view that these
Chinese
cultural properties in the US have become part of American culture
because
they were there for a long time", Shan said.

"These properties were taken out of their places of origin in a wretched
way," he said.

"The directors should come and see how invaluable murals were cruelly
cut
into pieces and taken away, and how ancient tombs were raided," he said.

According to Greek culture minister Michalis Liapis, ancient
civilizations
should work together and "form an unofficial ally" to fight against the
smuggling of cultural properties.

In November 2006, after a year of negotiations, the J. Paul Getty Museum
in
Los Angeles agreed in principle to return a rare, 4th century BC gold
funerary wreath to Greece that culture officials there contend was
illegally
removed from Greek soil. The museum bought the artifact in 1993.