China to Research Foreign Museum Archives for Chinese Artifacts

  China seems to be taking a new approach to repatriation, creating research teams which will inspect the holdings of museums to "document" the archives.  This has led to speculation that China may use its growing economic clout to demand the return of objects.  

Peter Foster reports for the Telegraph:

The sacking of the Old Summer Palace – or 'Yuanmingyuan' – as punishment for the torture and execution of 18 emissaries sent by western powers to Beijing, remains an emotive subject in China, where it is still viewed as one of the nation's great humiliations.
The decision to try and document the millions of items now scattered round the world comes as China takes an increasing interest in retrieving artefacts that were removed from China during the colonial period and in the early 20th century.
"We don't really know how many relics have been plundered since the catalogue of the treasures stored in the garden was burned during the catastrophe," the palace's current director Chen Mingjie told the state-run China Daily newspaper.
"But based on our rough calculations, about 1.5 million relics are housed in more than 2,000 museums in 47 countries." China's sensitivity towards such 'looted' treasures was demonstrated in March when a Chinese collector sabotaged the auctioning of two bronze heads taken from the Old Summer Palace, bidding £13.9m for each, but later refusing to pay.

Peter Foster, China to study British Museum for looted artefacts, Telegraph.co.uk, October 19, 2009.