Key facts
- The US returned 41 Chinese cultural relics and artworks to China on March 3, 2025.
- The returned items include pottery, jade, bronze, Buddhist artifacts, and architectural components.
- The artifacts date from the Neolithic period to the Qing Dynasty.
- The Manhattan District Attorney's office seized the items in November 2024.
- This repatriation is the first outcome of US-China repatriation cooperation in 2025.
- Since 2009, China and the US have cooperated on 20 instances, returning 594 artifacts.
The United States has returned 41 pieces of Chinese cultural relics and artworks to China, marking the first repatriation outcome of US-China cooperation in 2025. The handover ceremony took place on March 3, 2025, at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in New York.
Luo Wenli, deputy director of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, stated at the ceremony that preventing and combating the illicit trafficking of cultural relics and promoting their return to their countries of origin are just actions that safeguard cultural security, respect cultural rights and national sentiments, and protect the achievements of human civilization. He emphasized the significant meaning of this repatriation.
China's Consul General in New York, Chen Li, expressed that China and the US have broad common interests and extensive cooperation space, and can be partners and friends to achieve mutual success and common prosperity. She hoped this return would serve as an opportunity to deepen cooperation in various fields.
Matthew Bogdanos, chief of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office's antiquities trafficking unit, remarked that in the field of repatriation, "we need to set aside differences and prejudices, like participating in the Olympics, and continuously strive for a common goal." He expressed joy in returning the 41 precious cultural relics and artworks to their country of origin, China.
The 41 returned items, seized by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in November 2024, include a rich variety of materials and span a wide historical period. They encompass jade, pottery, porcelain, bronze ware, architectural components, wooden and stone sculptures, and bronze figurines, all possessing considerable historical and artistic value. After receiving the artifacts in New York, the National Cultural Heritage Administration will arrange for their return to China and coordinate subsequent publicity and exhibition efforts.
Since the first intergovernmental memorandum of understanding between China and the US on preventing the illegal entry of Chinese cultural relics into the US was signed on January 14, 2009, the two countries have successfully cooperated on 20 instances, resulting in the return of 594 pieces/sets of lost Chinese cultural relics and artworks from the US.