US returns 64 items to China — South China Morning Post
The United States handed over 64 cultural items and paleontological fossils to China that had previously been seized by US law enforcement. As the South China Morning Post reports, 58 items were handed over during a ceremony at the Chinese embassy in Washington as part of the US Homeland Security Investigations Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities programme.
Another six items were returned the following day by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in New York. The objects handed over included a bodhisattva statue from the Tianlongshan Caves in Shanxi province. According to the Chinese embassy in Washington, it was looted and taken abroad more than a century ago.
Seized items
Chinese Ambassador to the United States Xie Feng said that the returned items have high historical, cultural and scientific value. They include ceramic figurines, stone sculptures, as well as dinosaur and fish fossils. According to him, all these objects were illegally transported to the United States and were later seized by US law enforcement.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the repatriation another step in implementing the agreements reached by the leaders of the two countries during meetings in Beijing. He also said that China and the United States should develop cooperation based on equality, mutual respect and mutual benefit.
Memorandum on returns
The handover took place several days before Chinese President Xi Jinping's planned visit to Washington. It is expected to be a return visit following US President Donald Trump's trip to Beijing in May, where the leaders agreed on a new positioning of bilateral relations.
China and the United States concluded their first intergovernmental memorandum on preventing the illegal import of Chinese cultural property into the United States in 2009. It was renewed in 2014, 2019 and 2024. According to Guo Jiakun, through this mechanism the United States has already returned more than 700 items to China. The largest single repatriation took place in 2019 and involved 361 objects.
