China’s Stolen Treasures

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China's Stolen Treasures: Heists, History and Heritage

China's Stolen Treasures

Heists, History and Heritage

BBC Radio 4 - China's Stolen Treasures, Heists, History and Heritage

Noah Charney investigates the looting of Chinese antiquities and demand for them in China.

Noah Charney investigates a series of heists targeting looted Chinese antiquities in Europe and asks if they are linked to a booming market for these items in China.

In the small hours of 6 August, 2010 thieves set off bombs around Stockholm, Sweden. The bombs were a distraction. The real target was the Chinese Pavilion at the Swedish royal residence, Drottningholm Palace. The thieves smashed open the doors and made off with a haul of Chinese antiquities, many of which used to be owned by Chinese emperors. 

But this was not a one-off theft. Similar burglaries took place in the following years in Cambridge, Durham and Norwich in England, as well as in France, Spain and Norway. Were the thefts connected and who might have been behind them?

Many of the objects targeted were looted by British and French troops during what the Chinese call the Century of Humiliation. China was militarily weaker than the two colonial giants of Europe at the time and lost both of the Opium Wars that enriched Britain and impoverished the Chinese. In October 1860, during the Second Opium War, the British looted the emperor’s Old Summer Palace close to Beijing. The resonance of this event has echoed down the centuries and, as China grows stronger, so do calls for the return of these antiquities.

With artist Ai Weiwei, historian Liu Yang, China specialists Kerry Brown, Frances Wood, James Miles, Jasper Becker and art collector Christopher Bruckner.

Writer and Presenter - Dr Noah Charney
Producer - Caroline Finnigan
Executive Producer - Rosie Collyer
Researcher - Nadia Mehdi
China Producer - Coco Zhao
Sound Designers - David Smith and Tom Berry for Wardour Studios
Music Composer - Nicholas Alexander

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