It should have been deemed an illegal auctioning of two Chinese imperial bronzes looted from the Imperial Palace when the French and the English sacked it during the Opium "War." That "war, by the way, was really a shameless attempt again by the Brits and French to colonize China because, after all, they were so used to colonizing everyone else in the world. Christie's response? They couldn't deny the right to auction the pieces, owned by the partner of the late Yves Saint Laurent.
One wonders. If this were the Italian government, protesting that the Getty had yet again acquired more statues illegally, of course both Christie's and this French man, would have acquiesced, stopped the auction and returned the pieces.
But it's China. Hey, they are just so easy to scapegoat. Again and again. So this French man said that he would return the illegally obtained bronzes if China "improved its human rights record."
That's shorthand for, you know, I'm really irresponsible, I'd rather have the money, and since everyone else points to China's human rights, I will too. It's convenient, rather than actually confronting the central issue: these were looted bronzes, illegally obtained during a war that was, frankly, a colonialist attempt by the French to subjugate the Chinese by inducing rampant drug addiction. When that didn't work, hey, why not just invade them? It's our right, after all, isn't it? We're from the West, we're French. We can do anything.
Why doesn't Mr. Pierre Berge confronting real history and examining what his country did to acquire these pieces in the first place?
The issue is not what China does do, the issue here is what other countries also do but don't take responsibility for because they avoid the issue by pointing the finger at China. That's the issue Westerners often don't grasp.
See the entire article here.
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