A bronze statue of a horse head among 12 statues of the Chinese zodiac that once decorated a fountain at Beijing's Yuanmingyuan or Old Summer Palace. [Photo/VCG]

China's precious cultural relics held abroad is an integral part of Chinese cultural heritage, and all Chinese people are concerned about their repatriation. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) convened in November 2012, the recovery of lost relics has been lifted to a new stage on all fronts and at multiple levels. China's practice of retrieving those relics has attracted much attention, but the process is full of twists and turns. Recently, Kong Quan, Deputy Director of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former Chinese Ambassador to France and concurrently to Monaco, was interviewed by China News Release to elaborate on China's recovery of lost cultural relics.

China News Release: How many Chinese relics are still held abroad? Which countries are they located in?

Kong Quan: For hundreds of years, numerous Chinese cultural relics have been lost overseas due to wartime robbery, tomb raiding, smuggling or iniquitous trade. They are mostly housed in museums or collected by individuals.

It is estimated by the China Cultural Relics Academy that since the first Opium War (1840–1842), over 10 million Chinese cultural relics have been transported to Europe, the United States, Japan, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions. More than 1 million of them are first- or second-grade cultural relics. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), about 1.67 million Chinese relics are housed in 218 museums in 47 countries, while relics of the same kind collected by individuals are more than 10 times that amount.

These two sets of data indicate that enormous Chinese relics are held abroad, mainly in Europe, the United States and Japan, covering almost all types of historical artifacts, like oracle bone inscriptions, bronzes, ceramics, jade, calligraphy and paintings, lacquers, sculptures, and ancient books and records.