|
Front Page of the Day
The West is afraidPosted by Joel Martinsen, October 22, 2009 4:41 PM
"The West is afraid of China's pursuit of national treasures," reads the headline along the right-hand side of the front page of today's Global Times. The article is largely a round-up of western media responses to the news that a team made up of experts from the Old Summer Palace and Tsinghua University will visit museums around the globe to create a catalog of cultural relics taken out of the country. Some of the treasures from the Palace were carried off when it was sacked by British and French troops in 1860, others were lost in fires, and many were probably looted by locals and circulated domestically. The catalog effort is meant to determine what cultural relics are still in existence and what others are probably lost forever, rather than an attempt to recover national treasures. According to the Global Times, however, western museums are panicked by the thought that they could lose their Chinese collections:
The article in question actually states that the Convention is non-retroactive, and that "signatories...can request items taken from them only after that date." It also turns out the "fear" proclaimed in the headline relies on a statement made back in February during the bronze head auction controversy:
But that's just the first half of the article. The far less sensationalistic second half goes on to discuss the difficulties that Yuanmingyuan catalogers face in their worldwide search. Links and Sources
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
passenger on
The case of the missing Obama front page
affordabe on
Blogspot unblocked, but Blogger is blocked
Adam J. Sc on
Snow in Beijing
Peter Kauf on
Bound feet in China
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
![]() Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Xujun Eberlein's Apologies Forthcoming: Hong Kong's Blacksmith Books has published a short story collection by Xujun Eberlein.
Princess Der Ling: Two Years in the Forbidden City: Two years in the Forbidden City is largely a reminiscence of the minutiae of life for one of history's most powerful women, by one of her court attendants, a Manchu noble's daughter by the name of Der Ling.
Carl Crow's The Long Road Back to China: In 1939 Carl Crow - an American journalist, advertising executive and author who had lived in Shanghai for 25 years until forced out by the Japanese - travelled up the Burma Road from Rangoon to Chongqing on assignment for Liberty magazine - 'the most interesting assignment I have ever been given'.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ The top Chinese books in 2007 (2008.02): China Reading Journal (中华读书报), Yazhou Zhoukan (亚洲周刊), and City Pictorial (城市画报) choose mainland China's top books for 2007. + Men behind the Nanny (2005.04): The Publicity Department (formerly known as the Propaganda Department) has held a "forum" in Beijing to promote what it calls "news editorial staff management regulations (in testing phase)". These regulations appear to be same the set of rules earlier reported on Danwei of which the stated intent is to clear up corrupt journalistic practices. + Asimov Published, Interviewed in Beijing (2005.03): Cover story from this week's Book Review section of The Beijing News announces the publication of a Chinese translation of Isaac Asimov's complete Foundation series. Yup, the Beijing News has scored a fictional interview with "I, Asimov". They've been taking similar liberties recently in their entertainment sections, captioning photographs of celebrities with made-up quotes.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
or Feedburner |






Comments on The West is afraid
Hmm...two objective headlines: "The West is afraid of China's pursuit of national treasures" and "Using 'Xingjiang Independence' to Contain China is a Fantasy".
Now, I wonder why so many Chinese netizens feel the Western media and the monolithic "West" (I'm imagining some sort of evil cartoon villain, plotting against the good guys) are always out to get them...
lol...you saying "the west" has never tried to contain china or the media hasn't been through good china bashing before?
It's about time China thanked the British Museum for its painstaking cataloguing, classification, and care of the relics in its possession.
Every large museum around the world has relics from outside its own country... but ones obtained through looting should be returned
Then again, it seems like most countries just don't care enough to do anything drastic. Egypt's royal tombs, Greece's Elgin marbles.. etc
Thank goodness CKS took all that loot to Taipei!
I guess the CCP types don't really have any dao li forcing "Chinese to give back to the Chinese" since in the end it's all "one China" right???
I think we need to do our best to work together in face of oncoming energy and climate problems.. We need China just as much as China needs us.