Data map: Archaeological staff excavated ancient tombs.
Photo by Li Chaoqing
Stop the Tomb Robber
Journalist/Xu Dawei
On October 19, 2020, Liu Jiyuan, a Grade A wanted criminal of the Ministry of Public Security, was arrested for major cultural relic crimes.
Before being wanted, Liu Jiyuan ran an "ancient crafts shop" in Nanjing for a long time, under the guise of legally operating antiques, secretly reselling precious national cultural relics.
From 2015 to 2018, Liu Jiyuan was suspected of illegally purchasing relics, chimes, bronze tigers, golden coffins and silver coffins, gilt coffins, bronze mirrors and other national precious cultural relics for reselling from tomb robbers.
After the incident in 2018, Liu Jiyuan suddenly disappeared, and the Shaanxi and Anhui police pursued him online.
The Ministry of Public Security has issued Class A warrants twice to arrest Liu Jiyuan, who is suspected of major cultural relic crimes.
Since 2017, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage have deployed special operations to combat cultural relics crimes across the country.
After three continuous special attacks, 3481 criminal cases of various cultural relics were detected, 5867 suspects were arrested, 751 criminal gangs were destroyed, and more than 40,000 cultural relics were recovered.
The Ministry of Public Security has issued four batches of A-level arrest warrants in a row. 42 fugitives from major cultural relic crimes have been wanted, and 38 have been arrested.
On August 31 this year, the Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage deployed to continue the one-year new round of special operations against cultural relics crimes, focusing on the theft and theft of stone carvings in cave temples, excavation of ancient cultural sites, ancient tombs, and theft of ancient towers and other cultural relics Crimes and crimes against key cultural relics protection units or national precious cultural relics.
On the one hand, the fight against cultural relic crimes has become normal, and on the other hand, there are still many difficulties in the fight against cultural relic crimes, such as jurisdiction, professional talents, institution establishment, and judicial difficulties.
Although the sword hangs high, the journey is still long.
Lag and jurisdiction dilemma
"Now there is a strange circle," said Shen Jun, head of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Shou County Public Security Bureau, Huainan City, Anhui Province.
Shouxian was once the capital of Chu State in the late Warring States Period. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, Shouxian was famous for its prosperity.
Because of the rich resources of tombs, it is called the "underground museum".
The Shouxian Public Security Bureau, where Shen Jun is located, has been fighting at the forefront of the fight against cultural relic crimes. However, what worries him is that “the public security organs have been fighting, but the tomb robbers have been doing it.” Many front-line police personnel believe that tomb robbery is a crime. The profit is huge, but the cost of crime is not high, which makes it difficult to ban the crime of robbing ancient tombs.
In recent years, scholars have been calling for a "tighter" approach to combating tomb robbery.
The 2011 Criminal Law Amendment (8) abolished all death sentences for crimes involving cultural relics.
Sun Hua, a professor at the School of Archaeology, Culture and Science of Peking University, pointed out in an interview with the media that the criminal law abolished the death penalty for tomb robbery, which immediately caused the phenomenon of tomb robbery to become more rampant. This is very worthy of reflection.
For the police, cracking down on tomb robbery often encounters the embarrassment that no one reports.
There are generally two sources of data on cultural relics cases, one is the data held by the public security organs, and the other is the data reported to the Inspection Department of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
Jin Pingchuan, a professor at Shanxi Police College and deputy director of the Yuci Branch of the Jinzhong City Public Security Bureau, pointed out in an interview with the media that the data held by the cultural relics system is actually very small, and the data held by the public security organs is only a number of cases. For various reasons, There are data gaps in the filing and initiation of various cases.
After a large number of tombs were robbed and excavated, because there were no direct victims, the "people did not complain", so the number of cases of tomb robbery was far smaller than the number of cases.
What is more passive is that the intelligence information stolen from tombs often lags behind.
For example, the ancient tomb of Wuwangdun in Huainan was robbed as early as 2015. It was not until early 2018 that the Public Security Bureau of Dingzhou City, Hebei Province detected an ancient tomb excavation case. The members of the gang reported the case and the Huainan police received clues.
"The attack is always lagging, and you haven't noticed it. How to file a case? How to investigate?" Huang Shengzhong, head of the Criminal Police Detachment of Huainan Public Security Bureau, said frankly.
Some archaeologists also complained, "We seem to always follow behind the tomb robbers and passively carry out emergency protection."
In the "6·15" series of robbing of ancient tombs in the north cemetery of Taosi in Shanxi, it was discovered that the tomb was robbed in 2016, and the tomb robbing started as early as 2013.
Taosi North Cemetery was originally not a protected area, and it was not declared until it was discovered that it was stolen.
"The protected areas are all stolen." Han Zhihui, head of the Linfen Case Handling Center of the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department to combat cultural relics crimes, said helplessly.
He told China News Weekly that many tomb robberies were not designated as protected areas when they happened. Most of the ancient tombs were stolen in a mess when they were not protected areas.
"It's difficult to fix the evidence if you don't find the tomb pit. If the clue is broken, it will be difficult to trace it."
The biggest feature of cultural relic crimes is that they are spread all over the country. The underground channels in the cultural relics field are in fact extending in all directions. Tomb robbery gangs often move across regions to commit crimes, posing challenges to the police in combating cultural relics crimes.
This requires the public security system to establish an efficient and accurate intelligence information system and sharing mechanism.
"We are already planning this matter ahead of time." Huang Shengzhong told China News Weekly that most tombs are difficult to find in the first place after being stolen, and the best time to detect the case is often missed when reporting the case. In response to this common problem, Huainan City The public security organs have established a key personnel database, through the data research and judgment of the movement of people in high-risk areas of tomb robbery in Huainan, and extract valuable clues based on the information provided by the cultural relics department on suspected stolen cases, and implement the investigation and control of key personnel. So as to achieve precise strikes.
"China News Weekly" also learned from the Shanghai police that the local public security organs and other provinces and cities have also established information sharing mechanisms, while focusing on cultural relic merchants in key areas.
The State Administration of Cultural Relics and the Ministry of Public Security relied on the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Department to establish an information center for combating cultural relics crimes to provide information and technical support for combating cultural relics crimes nationwide.
Another problem that plagues the public security organs in cracking down on cross-regional robbery of ancient tombs is the dilemma of case jurisdiction.
The public security organ of Linfen City, Shanxi Province was investigating a case of theft and excavation of ancient tombs. Because the suspect stolen cultural relics and reselled them in other places, and continued to resell them, the procuratorial agency believed that the stolen cultural relics were reselling and concealing criminal proceeds. The place is not in the local area, and the local investigative agency has no jurisdiction. Due to inconsistent understanding and imperfect laws and regulations, the recovery of cultural relics and the entire chain of attacks cannot be carried out normally.
Taking the crime of concealing and concealing the proceeds of crime and proceeds of crime as an example, the only relevant judicial interpretations at present are the Law Interpretation (2007) No. 11 "The Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Handling and Theft and Robbery" implemented on May 11, 2007. Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Specific Application of Laws in Criminal Cases Related to, Fraud, and Robbery of Motor Vehicles, Article 5 stipulates the jurisdiction of cross-regional crimes, but there are no detailed regulations on the field of cultural relics crimes, which causes the problem of inconsistent understanding.
For local public relations agencies, in the process of combating cultural relics crimes, they will generally encounter judicial difficulties of jurisdiction.
A police person pointed out to China News Weekly that a similar dilemma is related to the post system reform. Procuratorates and courts implement a post system, "who handles the case is responsible." Prosecutors are unwilling to take additional risks for cases from other provinces.
A number of police sources suggested that relevant departments should fix relevant laws and regulations clearly.
How to "Professionalization Against Professionalism"
Fighting against cultural relics crimes has professional barriers compared to traditional crimes of property infringement.
For local public security organs, the first thing they face in combating cultural relic crimes is the problem of insufficient professional talents.
Han Zhihui, head of the Linfen Case Handling Center of the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department to combat cultural relics crimes, has organized relevant professional training courses.
He told China News Weekly that the difficulty in training professionals to combat cultural relics crime lies in the need to have a deep understanding of history and cultural relics.
Recently, the Ministry of Public Security's Criminal Investigation Bureau has issued a recruitment announcement by the Cultural Relics Crime Investigation Division that requires professionals in archaeology, cultural relics and museology.
At the local level, the Shanxi police has trained professionals in combating cultural relics crimes through a three-year special campaign against cultural relics crimes, and at the same time has established a professional talent pool for combating cultural relics crimes.
"Professional talents must undergo actual combat training." Huang Shengzhong, head of the Criminal Police Detachment of Huainan City Public Security Bureau, told China News Weekly that Huainan City Public Relations Organizations also adopted a similar approach, that is, the City Bureau's Synthetic Operations Center takes the lead to organize talent training and command and attack major cases. , Internet security, technical investigation, video, intelligence and other departments simultaneously filed the case, gradually forming an echelon of talents to combat cultural relics crimes in practice.
In the face of increasingly professional crimes on cultural relics, the public security department needs the support of professional institutions to achieve "professionalization and combating professionalization".
How to solve the problem of organization establishment is undoubtedly a difficult problem.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security has recently established the Investigation Division of Cultural Relics Crimes, which aims to combat cultural relics crimes more professionally.
At the local level, due to the establishment of institutions, only the Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Bureau has established a specialized agency to combat cultural relics crimes.
Under the general trend of streamlining the establishment, it is not realistic for local grassroots public security organs to add specialized agencies to combat cultural relics crimes.
Huang Shengzhong said frankly that Anhui is not a major cultural relics province, and there is no special police force to professionally combat cultural relics crimes.
In order to solve this problem, the Huainan City Public Security Bureau set up a combined operations center, which unified command and combined operations from receiving police, filing a case, on-site investigation, information research and judgment, interrogation, and transfer of cultural relic identification.
Professionals are usually scattered in the city bureaus and sub-county bureaus, but they can quickly assemble to form dedicated work teams when they encounter police situations.
Shen Jun, head of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Shou County Public Security Bureau of Huainan City, told reporters that in the face of some cultural relic crimes, the sub-county bureaus often do not have professional teams, nor do they have technical forces such as technical investigations and network security. Bureau to integrate resources."
The investigation and handling of cultural relics crimes is often an arduous "marathon."
"Our longest case took one and a half years," Han Zhihui told China News Weekly. The arrest is a very complicated matter. "We must use all the investigation time to the extreme."
For ganged and professional cultural relic crime cases, in-depth management is necessary. “We need careful research and judgment, and we must figure out every link before closing the network.” Huang Shengzhong told China News Weekly that in-depth management It often takes months or even a year, which means that a large amount of funding is required to combat cultural relics.
Often to crack down on a tomb-robber gang that travels to many places, the police need to dispatch multiple arrest teams, and dozens of police officers are sent to multiple locations to conduct investigations and arrests. The cost of handling a case can easily reach millions of dollars, which can only squeeze other case funds.
In order to protect cultural relics, the state will have special budgetary funds, but it is inclined to some large cultural relics provinces.
"There is no such thing as Anhui, let alone funding guarantees like us." Huang Shengzhong said frankly.
A number of police interviewees said that it is not enough to rely solely on the leadership to pay attention to the protection of funds for combating cultural relics crimes.
Leaders attach importance to it and can only solve one area or one problem, and cannot form a long-term mechanism.
Also subject to staffing and funding are the cultural relics protection department.
Due to work, Shen Jun often communicates with the grassroots cultural relics department.
Shen Jun told China News Weekly that the cultural relics department alone cannot solve the problem of cultural relics protection.
Taking Shou County as an example, there are more than 160 historic sites in the county, including more than 10 Tang, Song, Ming, and Qing buildings, more than 80 ancient tombs, and 29 ancient sites. There are only 15 posts in the establishment.
"The area of jurisdiction is large, how can it be managed by more than a dozen people?" Shen Jun suggested that special personnel or technical precautions should be implemented for some key tomb areas, and they should be included in the government's responsibilities to increase the degree of attention.
Wang Yunxia, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage Law, Renmin University of China, believes that the effect of administrative law enforcement on cultural relics is not satisfactory, mainly because the law enforcement team is not sufficient and professional.
At present, cultural relics departments in many places no longer have specialized law enforcement teams, but cultural relics administrative law enforcement is carried out by comprehensive cultural law enforcement teams.
Cultural relics management has strong professionalism, and comprehensive law enforcement personnel may not have them, which seriously affects the ability and effectiveness of law enforcement.
Wang Yunxia suggested that a professional and dedicated cultural relics law enforcement team should be established and given independent law enforcement powers, so that the responsibilities of cultural relics law enforcement can be truly and effectively performed.
Identification problem
In the case of the stolen tomb of Wuwangdun, 26 chimes were identified as secondary cultural relics by relevant departments. Huainan police disagrees with this.
"We think it should be a first-class cultural relic," Gao Kun, head of the Criminal Investigation Team of the Public Security Bureau of Shannan New District, Huai'an City, told China News Weekly that they had proposed that trace element identification can be carried out, and they also applied for appraisal review, but they were unsuccessful.
The reason why the police are more authentic at the appraisal level is because the result of the level appraisal of cultural relics is directly related to the criminal sentencing standards.
Usually, the penalty for theft of first-class cultural relics is more than 10 years, and the penalty for theft of second-class cultural relics is less than 10 years.
"We feel that the most difficult aspect is the identification." Huang Shengzhong, head of the Criminal Police Division of Huainan City Public Security Bureau, told China News Weekly that the current cultural relics crime law is still a codified structure for cultural relics crimes in 1997, and it is no longer suitable for the current anti-crimes. Need, such as in the identification of cultural relics, there are few identification agencies, and the phenomenon of re-identification is difficult.
On June 20, 2018, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Public Security, and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the "Administrative Measures for the Appraisal and Evaluation of Cultural Relics Involved in the Case", which specified that the State Administration of Cultural Heritage is responsible for the selection and appraisal of cultural relics involved in the case. Institutions to formulate management systems and standards for the appraisal and evaluation of the cultural relics involved.
The provincial cultural relics administrative department is responsible for recommending the appraisal and evaluation agencies of the cultural relics involved in the case, and supervise and manage the appraisal and evaluation of the cultural relics involved in the case.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has selected and designated 41 cultural relics appraisal and evaluation agencies across the country.
According to the data provided by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, in recent years, 41 cultural relics appraisal agencies have provided appraisal of cultural relics in more than 1,300 criminal cases, involving more than 70,000 pieces (sets) of movable cultural relics and nearly 600 immovable cultural relics.
However, at the grassroots level, the identification requirements are still difficult to meet.
Huang Shengzhong believes that to solve the difficulty of identification, it is necessary to consider the establishment of cultural relic identification agencies at the national level.
In addition, there are differences in opinions among appraisal institutions, and there are also differences in standards between provinces.
Compared with the judicial appraisal of ordinary crimes, a coherent mechanism has been formed, and the appraisal mechanism of the cultural relics involved in the case still needs to be supplemented.
Li Wen (pseudonym), a senior cultural relic appraisal expert in Shanxi Province, told China News Weekly that the appraisal of cultural relics mainly relies on the appraiser’s knowledge of the cultural relics, and X-rays will be used to see the internal structure of the artifacts to distinguish the authenticity.
When the cultural relics are confiscated back, the appraisers will first enter the original information, including the size, weight, source and other information, and then take a photo, and then verify the authenticity, level, and preciousness.
The appraisal results need to be evaluated by multiple experts present.
Li Wen told reporters that the rating standards for cultural relics mainly refer to their historical value, artistic value and scientific value.
For example, the bronzes unearthed from the Shang cemetery at Wenxi Jiuwutou in Shanxi are often rated relatively high, because there are few Shang tombs in southeast Shanxi.
The discovery of a Shang dynasty tomb in Jiuwutou means that it proves that there was also a business culture in the area at that time, so it can solve a historical problem.
If the same bronze ware were unearthed in Henan, its importance would decrease.
Zhu Fenghan, a professor in the Department of History of Peking University, has participated in the identification of stolen cultural relics several times.
He told China News Weekly that the country is not without the grading standards for cultural relics. Cultural relics appraisal agencies will also grade cultural relics in accordance with the standards set by the state, but some aspects can be refined.
In general, experts only determine the material, type, age and grade of the cultural relics in the appraisal of cultural relics, but do not include "whether it is an unearthed cultural relic" or "whether it is a cultural relic that is prohibited from trading" into the appraisal category, which also adds to the traceability of cultural relics. Difficulty.
The relevant person in charge of the Criminal Investigation Corps of the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department told China News Weekly that in the process of tracing important cultural relics, some cultural relics were stolen and resold many times, and some were smuggled out of the country and returned to China, making it difficult to trace the source of cultural relics.
Some criminal suspects pointed clues to the dead, causing the clues to be interrupted and important cultural relics could not be traced back to the source.
More importantly, whether cultural relics are prohibited by the state from being sold or sold is not recognized by the appraisal agency. This makes it difficult to determine the "criminal and non-criminal" of cultural relics in the circulation and transaction link when the public security organs trace and trace the cultural relics.
The crime and non-crime of cultural relics transaction
Cultural relic crime is a long black chain, but the frontline police officers often encounter the problem of defining "crime and non-crime" in the field of cultural logistics.
"Suppose I am a collector and get it from the market, but I don't know that it is an unearthed cultural relic. How to define it?" Shen Jun, head of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Shou County Public Security Bureau, Huainan City throws out his confusion.
Shen Jun believes that my country's laws are too broad in the field of cultural, logistics, and communication, which will cause excessive attacks and identification difficulties.
A typical case is that a resident of Shanxi bought a pile of broken copper pieces on a street stall. After returning home, he spliced the pieces one by one and repaired them, and then sold the cultural relics. As the source of the market side could not be determined, the police were “criming” The identification of "and non-criminal" is in difficulty.
The "Cultural Relics Protection Law of the People's Republic of China" recognizes that all cultural relics unearthed from water are national.
However, its Article 50 stipulates the methods of obtaining private cultural relics: inheritance or acceptance of gifts in accordance with the law; purchase from cultural relics stores; purchase from auction companies operating cultural relics auctions; cultural relics legally owned by individuals are exchanged or transferred in accordance with the law.
Wang Yunxia, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage Law of Renmin University of China, believes that the first three items are relatively clear, but the latter one is indeed more likely to cause ambiguity and be easily misunderstood.
The meaning of legal transfer is not very clear. It should include free gift, inheritance, and paid sales. Not only does it overlap with the previous items, it may also raise questions about whether individuals can sell cultural relics.
The method of acquiring cultural relics involves the basic rights of citizens, and should be specified more clearly and concretely, and should not be ambiguous.
Qian Weiqing, a senior partner of Beijing Dacheng Law Firm, believes that whether it is an unearthed water cultural relic should not be proved by the holder of the cultural relic. This is a presumption of guilt and violates the principle of acquisition in good faith.
"As long as there is no evidence that he is theft, tomb-robbing, smuggling, and the state prohibits trading cultural relics, then it is legal. Because these cultural relics have countless sources." Qian Weiqing said.
Wang Yunxia believes that the underground and underwater cultural relics are state-owned, and private ownership and trading are not allowed. Therefore, there is no problem of ambiguity in the transaction of unearthed cultural relics that causes the distinction between crime and non-crime.
Some people have doubts about the conviction of transactions involving unearthed cultural relics because they believe that they have purchased them at a reasonable price from the legal market or from others, and are completely unaware.
However, the law has clearly stipulated the franchise of cultural relics. If it is not purchased from a qualified cultural relics store or auction house, the transaction itself is not legal.
Moreover, the law has clearly forbidden the private sale of unearthed cultural relics, so even if he purchases it from others at a reasonable price and does not know it, he cannot claim to be a bona fide purchaser; if he knows it is an unearthed cultural relic and buys it, he is involved in the sale of stolen goods.
In recent years, the enthusiasm for the collection of Chinese folk cultural relics has not diminished, and there have been chaos in the field of cultural and logistics exchanges and collections.
Does private mobile cultural logistics need special laws to regulate?
Wang Yunxia thinks it is completely unnecessary.
"Because the circulation of cultural relics has some peculiarities, as long as these peculiarities are clearly stipulated."
As a matter of fact, the 2002 "Cultural Relics Protection Law" and several subsequent amendments have not made a breakthrough in the system of non-governmental circulation.
Wang Yunxia told China News Weekly that these amendments are actually not making major adjustments, and their focus is on the connection with the administrative licensing system. The system of non-governmental logistics is completely out of the scope of previous amendments.
A police source revealed to China News Weekly that the Ministry of Public Security has been hoping to promote the civil cultural relic registration system in recent years, but it cannot continue.
Huo Zhengxin, deputy dean of the School of International Law of China University of Political Science and Law, told China News Weekly that there is great resistance to the promotion of the registration system of private cultural relics. Many experts in the cultural relics community resist this, and they believe that a large number of illegal cultural relics will be legalized.
Huo Zhengxin believes that to implement the civil cultural relics registration system, it is not enough to change the cultural relics protection law. It is also necessary to revise laws including the Civil Code and the Property Law. The current legal framework is still difficult to break through.
In addition, if the implementation of the cultural relic registration system fails to solve the problem of the ownership of cultural relics and replaces it with possession, the effect of the policy will be greatly reduced.
Wang Yunxia believes that this is a very ideal system.
In her view, some civil law countries such as France and Japan have established a registration system for privately owned cultural relics, but this system is difficult to implement in China and requires a lot of manpower and material resources.
The problem of retrieving the loss of cultural relics
At the beginning of 2019, the bronze set of Zeng Boke's father, cast in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, appeared in an auction message of Tokyo Central Auction Company, Japan.
Zhang Changping, a professor at the School of History of Wuhan University and a bronze research expert, saw the auction catalogue of the auction company for the first time.
He and other cultural relic experts discovered that the bronze wares in this group had the same blue rust color as the Zengguo bronzes unearthed in Suizhou, Hubei and other places in recent years, so they speculated that they were smuggled out of the country illegally.
However, the auction company provided a version of the "old collection of the Republic of China".
Guan Qiang, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said in an interview with China News Weekly that the bronze artifacts of Zeng Boke’s father were not collected from the Republic of China, but were unearthed from the tombs of high-ranking nobles of Zeng State in the early Spring and Autumn Period in Suizhou, Hubei. , And can prove that this group of bronzes appeared in Shanghai in 2014.
On March 6, 2019, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage further verified that none of the 21 cultural relics entry and exit review and management offices across the country had handled the exit formalities for the batch of bronze assemblies, which were illegally exported to Japan after 2014.
According to the Tokyo Central Auction Company's plan, this set of bronzes will be auctioned at the Tokyo Dome Hotel on the evening of March 12.
Time is urgent. On March 7, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of Public Security jointly agreed to launch a recourse through a combination of diplomatic efforts and criminal investigation.
On March 8, the Shanghai Public Security Agency completed the relevant investigations and determined that the entrusted auctioneer and actual holder of Zeng Boke’s father’s bronze assembly equipment, Zhou Mou, was suspected of a major crime and formally opened a case for investigation.
On the other hand, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage notified the Japanese Embassy in China about the loss of cultural relics and provided relevant evidence to request Japan’s cooperation.
At this time, Zhou, who was in Japan, still insisted that the bronze assembly was purchased in Japan, had a legal source, and had not been stored in the country.
In order to prevent the auction and ensure the recourse of the cultural relics, the Shanghai police have been working to require him to bring cultural relics back to China.
After gambling for several months, Zhou expressed his willingness to hand in.
On the morning of August 20th, the auction company sent the bronze assembly of Zeng Boke's father to the Chinese Embassy in Japan.
The joint working group sent by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of Public Security, witnessed by representatives of the Chinese Embassy in Japan and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, completed the physical identification and acceptance of this set of bronzes.
A relevant person from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau told China News Weekly that the success of this cultural relics recovery lies in the rapid response of the public security, cultural relics and other departments, the careful design of the plan, and the tacit cooperation with each other.
If the usual methods of international judicial assistance are used for recourse, it will undoubtedly be another "marathon."
In fact, the exodus of Zeng Boke's father's bronze wares to Japan is just the tip of the iceberg of the smuggling of Chinese cultural relics.
According to the statistics of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics, since the Opium War in 1840, more than 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been lost to countries and regions such as Europe, America, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Among them, more than 1 million national first- and second-class cultural relics have been lost.
According to another statistics of UNESCO, there are 1.64 million Chinese cultural relics in more than 200 museums in 47 countries, and the number of Chinese cultural relics collected by private people is 10 times the number of collections.
The current illegal smuggling is still allowing more cultural logistics to go overseas.
In Asia, Hong Kong and Japan are important transit points and destinations for the outflow of Chinese cultural relics.
Huo Zhengxin, deputy dean of the School of International Law of China University of Political Science and Law, told China News Weekly that China is a signatory to the 1970 UNESCO Convention and 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, but these two conventions have not been extended to Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has no positive feedback on joining these two conventions. The reason is that Hong Kong, as an international free port, has loose management of cultural relics trade. "Cultural relics trade is good for Hong Kong’s economy, and strict management is not good for the economy. On the contrary, it will increase law enforcement costs and affect Tax, so it has not been very positive."
Huo Zhengxin said.
A number of police interviewees pointed out that in recent years, Japan is a direction worthy of attention to the outflow of Chinese cultural relics.
Different from the traditional province of historical and cultural relics, Shanghai's cultural market is prosperous. The Shanghai police will focus on the illegal circulation and smuggling of cultural relics.
The aforementioned person from the Shanghai Public Security Bureau told China News Weekly that cultural relics are usually smuggled out of the country through entrainment. Once they encounter customs inspection, they are called works of art and crafts.
The other way is to go south to Guangdong and smuggle out of the border with vehicles that can pass through both Guangdong and Hong Kong. Some cultural relics will also be smuggled out of the country in the form of container freight.
In the next step, the Shanghai public relations agency will focus on cooperating with the Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, focusing on combating the smuggling of cultural relics, and hope to establish a rapid cultural relic inspection and identification team.
In recent years, China has gradually increased its efforts to pursue the loss of cultural relics abroad. Some scholars have suggested that a special cultural relics loss intelligence department should be established, focusing on foreign auction companies, museums, and private sellers.
At present, there are generally four ways of recourse for Chinese cultural relics that have been lost overseas. One is to recourse through judicial channels with the help of international conventions within the time limit for prosecution; the other is through diplomatic channels; the third is donations by overseas Chinese; and the fourth is purchase.
The return of cultural relics is still an internationally complex issue, and the retrieving of overseas cultural relics is not all smooth sailing.
Wang Yunxia, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage Law of Renmin University of China Law School, believes that although China has acceded to the 1970 UNESCO Convention and 1995 UNIDROIT Convention, the scope of regulation and scope of the Convention’s regulation is limited, especially because of the lack of retrospective power. It cannot solve the problem of the return of lost cultural relics in history; even the stolen and illegal export problems that occurred after joining the Convention may not be applicable because the other party is not a contracting party.
If a return request is made between non-contracting states, it usually needs to be done in accordance with the laws of the country where it is located, and the situation is more complicated.
Huo Zhengxin told China News Weekly that the UNIDROIT Convention in 1995 had only 40 contracting states, and most of them were abroad. International conventions are only binding if both parties join.
Although more than 140 countries joined the UNESCO Convention in 1970, the Convention itself has too many flaws and is a compromise. For example, it only applies to recourse for the loss of cultural relics in the collection, but many cultural relics lost in China are robbed from graves. of.
In addition, in the process of retrieving cultural relics, they often face obstacles in the domestic laws of various countries. The main obstacles are the good faith acquisition and the transaction of cultural relics.
There is a saying that, according to the convention or the local law, the party who proposes the return needs to compensate the bona fide holder, which is a relatively heavy burden for the original owner.
Wang Yunxia believes that the establishment of the rule that stolen cultural relics must be returned is a huge challenge to the existing systems of good faith acquisition in many Western countries, and the balance between the interests of the original owner and the good possessor must be taken into consideration.
If the current possessor is indeed a bona fide possessor and has fulfilled the duty of investigation at the time of purchase, reasonable compensation should be obtained.
After the original owner has compensated the bona fide possessor, he can still continue to recover from the former.
China News Weekly, Issue 40, 2020
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