How absurd to "kidnap" cultural relics with human rights

Source: Xinhua | 02-26-2009 08:08

BEIJING, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Two pieces of China's valuable cultural past, the bronze heads of a rabbit and a rat, stolen from the Old Summer Palace by British and French forces during the second Opium War in 1860, are scheduled for auction in Paris Wednesday night.

Long before the auction, the Chinese government, cultural heritage organizations and lawyers have been actively pursuing the return of the Chinese treasures. However, at this specific moment, the owner of the bronzes, French businessman Pierre Berge, offered to swap the two sculptures for the application of human rights in China and the freedom of Tibet. From the Chinese point of view, it's an absurd requirement by abducting China's cultural relics with human rights issues.

It's a big irony that Berge uses the bronzes, the exact evidence of human rights abuses done to the Chinese by British and French colonists more than a century ago, to ask China to apply human rights.

In 1860, the British and French forces used guns and cannons to invade Beijing, sacked and burned the grand Old Summer Palace on the outskirt of the capital and stole numerous Chinese cultural treasures, including the 12 bronze animal heads.