How many cultural relics have been lost overseas in China? I'm afraid this is a question that no one can answer accurately. But what is certain is that this is an extremely huge number, so big that China people are terrified and the world is dumbfounded. What is more worthy of Chinese people's attention is that among these huge figures, the proportion of cultural relics plundered by invaders several times in history is getting smaller and smaller, while more and more cultural relics have been lost since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially in the past 20 years. The reporter tracked some reliable cultural relics databases at home and abroad for a long time, and made a systematic investigation and statistics on overseas museums with a large number of cultural relics in China and their sources. The results are as follows:-British museums and libraries * * * collected about 6,543,800 pieces of China cultural relics, most of which were illegally plundered from China by the invaders during the modern colonial period. Among them, the British Museum contains more than 30,000 rare national treasures such as China's paintings and calligraphy, ancient books, jade, pottery, porcelain, bronzes and sculptures. Almost all the ancient paintings of China that have been lost overseas are in museums. These treasures cover nearly 7,000 years of history in China, many of which have never been published. For example, Gu Kaizhi in the Eastern Jin Dynasty treasured copies of the Tang Dynasty, Li Sixun's Castle Peak, the son of Li Xiaobin, the imperial clan in the early Tang Dynasty, Ju Ran's Maolin Dieying, the Shaanxi painter Fan Kuan's Qin Visiting Friends, and Li's Hua Yan Tu, one of the three painters in the Northern Song Dynasty, are called "Longmian laity". In addition, there are bronze double sheep statues in Shang Dynasty, bronze guis of Kanghou in Western Zhou Dynasty, bronze guis of Xinghou, Dunhuang murals, jade carving dragons in Han Dynasty, topaz sitting on a dog in Tang Dynasty, etc. It has also become a treasure of the museum. -French museums and libraries collect about 2.6 million historical relics of China, which were illegally plundered from China during the modern colonial period. The Louvre Museum has a collection of more than 30,000 China cultural relics, including more than 6,000 painted pottery, Shang and Zhou bronzes and porcelain from primitive society. Its branch, Ji Mei Museum, also collects tens of thousands of China cultural relics, accounting for more than half of the museum's total cultural relics. Among them, there are 6,543,800+2,000 pieces of ceramics in the past dynasties, ranking first in the collection of China ceramics in overseas museums. Besides, the collections of China cultural relics in Paris and other city museums can be compared with the Louvre. The National Library of France has a collection of more than 65,438+00000 Dunhuang cultural relics, including the silk manuscripts of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the bronze inscriptions of the Sui Dynasty, the manuscripts of silk embroidery of the Tang Dynasty, the manuscripts of the Tang Dynasty, the engravings of the Wanli of the Ming Dynasty, the maps of the Qing Dynasty and the silk manuscripts of 40 poems of Yuanmingyuan. Among them, there are three kinds of Dunhuang paintings and Tang rubbings, which are orphans and rare treasures. -Japan has more than 0/000 large and small museums/kloc-,and * * * has a collection of nearly 2 million historical relics of China, most of which were plundered by Japanese invaders during Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of Beijing and Japan's war of aggression against China. The Tokyo National Museum alone has collected more than 90,000 historical and cultural treasures of China. Among them, there are countless treasures and orphans, far exceeding ordinary museums in China, such as "Fishing Alone in the Cold River" by Ma Yuan, a famous painter in the Southern Song Dynasty, which is still being detained; In addition, Wang Xizhi's Tie Mei, Preface to Dingwu Lanting, Seventeen Styles, Preface to Wang Ji Shengjiao, and Letters from Li Bo in the Former Cool Times are also rare cultural relics. According to the statistics of China government, from 193 1 to 1945 War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, there were 1879 boxes of cultural property looted by Japan, and 74 1 historical sites were destroyed. The number of looted cultural relics in China is incalculable. Japan counted 3.6 million pieces after the war alone. -The German Museum has a large number of ancient China cultural relics. According to the relevant publications in this country, the total number of records is about 300,000. These China cultural relics came to Germany mainly through two channels: they were seized after Eight-Nation Alliance captured Beijing, and they were stolen from China in the name of archaeology in the early 20th century. Take 1902- 1905 as an example. In the past three years, German expeditions have taken away 400 boxes of antiques in Turpan and Kuqa. Among them, there are portrait murals of Manichaeism founder Meniz that have never been found before, and there are many strange handwritten documents, textiles, coins and so on. However, the museum where these cultural relics were collected was bombed in World War II, and more than half of hundreds of murals were lost. More than 20 murals in Baizixi were all reduced to ashes, and nearly 300 statues were destroyed by half. -Russia, one of Eight-Nation Alliance, plundered many cultural relics and treasures from China. It is strange that people seldom see those cultural relics in the museums of the former Soviet Union after the war. The reporter consulted a large number of historical documents and found the secret: some Russian cultural relics looted by the Russian army were sold to their new country of residence by exiled Russian nobles, and the other part was because China and the Soviet Union belonged to the Oriental Group. The Soviet government did not allow these "trophies" marked by Russian imperial aggression to be made public, but hid them in some research institutions. In the collection catalogue of Oriental Institute in St. Petersburg, the reporter found the clues of Russian looting of China cultural relics. There are not only the Ming and Qing cultural relics in China from Yuanmingyuan to the Forbidden City, but also the more precious Dunhuang suicide note of 654.38+0.2 million, ranking second in the world, second only to China. There are only 20,000 Dunhuang suicide notes in China, and the rest are divided up by Britain, France, Japan, Austria, Sweden and other countries. -According to incomplete statistics, nearly 200,000 pieces of ancient China cultural relics are stored in major Canadian cultural relics institutions. In an interview with the International Herald Tribune, Lux, the curator of the Royal Ontario Museum and an expert on China's cultural relics, once claimed in fluent Chinese: "The Royal Ontario Museum has 35,000 pieces of China, which are among the best in the world in terms of exquisiteness and rarity. Even many museums in China are not as rich as our collections ... "He also admitted that most of these China cultural relics were acquired by Canadian missionary William Charles White who hired people to" explore "in Luoyang, China from 1909 to 1934. According to historical records, this William Charles White has been collecting China cultural relics for the Royal Museum of Ontario since he came to China to preach. It took six years before and after, and more than one large wooden tomb 10 was excavated, and more than one cultural relic 10000 was unearthed, including thousands of royal treasures of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty alone. -American media revealed that in the past 30 years, about 2.3 million pieces of China cultural relics flowed into the United States, of which more than 200,000 pieces were collected by major museums in the United States. Unlike Britain, France, Japan, Russia and other countries, most of China's cultural relics collected by major museums in the United States were illegally acquired from abroad in the last 20 years or so. For example, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has 10 China cultural relics showrooms, among which there are many rare treasures such as sculptures, paintings, bronzes and ceramics. Among the more than 5,000 ancient paintings of China in the museum, there are masterpieces by Yan, a painter of the Tang Dynasty, a well-preserved Taoist Picture of the Tang Dynasty and a colorful parrot. In the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania, China's national treasure stone carving Six Horses in Zhaoling has "fist hair ■" and "purple dew". However, in the collection of China Local Forest of Steles Museum, two of the "Six Horses" can only be replicas; Almost half of the collections of friel Art Museum in Washington, USA are China cultural relics, including calligraphy and painting, Buddhist art, bronzes, jades and pottery. San Francisco Asian Art Museum has actually identified China cultural relics as the main collection object of the museum. There are more than 2,000 pieces of ceramics, 1200 pieces of jade and 800 pieces of bronzes. From the Neolithic Age to the Qing Dynasty, it is the museum with the richest collection of China jade in the world. In addition, the University of Chicago Library * * * collects nearly 400 kinds of China ancient rare books, about1.4000 volumes; The library of Columbia University has 65,438+05,000 volumes of China's genealogy ... The above figures are only part of the well-documented cultural relics of China that have been lost overseas. A friend who works in the national security department told reporters: "The cultural relics lost in China have formed an international one-stop operation. From poaching to smuggling to appearing in foreign trading markets, it can often be completed in a few days. " In order to confirm this friend's statement, the reporter visited some customs officers. They said that with the increasing prosperity of China's foreign trade, the number of goods inspected by the customs is staggering. Therefore, in many places, only spot checks can be taken to check customs clearance items, and the sampling ratio is generally 5%. According to this low proportion of random inspection, the number of smuggled cultural relics seized every year is still considerable. The reporter looked through the relevant records of the General Administration of Customs of China in recent years, and many cases were shocking. -On May 23, 2002, Luohu Customs intercepted a pile of bronzes in a snakeskin bag from a passenger's luggage, who claimed to have bought "rotten copper" from 300 yuan in the Guangzhou second-hand market. After the Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relics Appraisal Committee identified: 170 pieces of "rotten copper" are all cultural relics of the Han Dynasty, of which 14 pieces are national precious cultural relics; —— On March 28th, 2003, Shenzhen Customs successfully cracked a case of smuggling precious national paleontological fossils, and * * * intercepted 2 165 pieces of cultural relics restricted by the state, including many national first-class cultural relics. This batch of smuggled fossils is rare in China because of its large quantity, high grade and long duration. From invertebrate fossils to vertebrate fossils, the variety is complete enough to form a large exhibition hall of paleontology fossils; -On February 22nd, 2003, 65438, the General Administration of Customs handed over nearly 9000 smuggled cultural relics seized over the years to National Cultural Heritage Administration. -On March 2, 2006, Kloc-0, 2006, when the anti-smuggling personnel of Dalian Customs inspected a cargo ship at Dadonggang Port in Dandong, Liaoning Province, they found that there was no density board declared by the owner for export in the container, but a large number of antique items were hidden. According to the expert appraisal of Liaoning Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the vast majority of these 12000 cultural relics are precious cultural relics in China, of which only 1055 pieces were made of tiles in the Han Dynasty. -On June/KOOC-0/65438+/KOOC-0/0/day, 2007, Hangzhou Customs cracked the largest smuggling case of cultural relics since the establishment of the Customs, and seized 5 boxes of paleontological fossils, accounting for/KOOC-0//KOOC-0/77 pieces. There are 28 fossil photo frames, 7 animal and plant fossils, 2 crocodile head fossils, 9 tortoise fossils, 2 crystal fossils, 2 dinosaur eggs, 5 clear and complete vertebrate fossils, 4 large plant fossils and 380 complete vertebrate fossils. Only four customs, only one day, and only 5% of them were randomly selected, and actually seized cultural relics 155 12 (excluding Tianjin customs). How many cultural relics will be lost in China every year if the inspection ratio of all customs is 100%, 365 days a year? At the national ports where we have absolute sovereignty, a batch of precious China cultural relics are constantly hijacked to foreign countries by lawless elements and coerced to embark on a journey of humiliating the country. In order to bring some important cultural relics back to China, the government of China and the people of China have not only devoted enormous energy and financial resources, but also suffered from the psychological torment of humiliation and anger. In addition to making solemn representations to countries that illegally encroach on China's cultural relics in accordance with relevant international laws, the China government also allocates tens of millions of funds to buy back the lost cultural relics overseas every year. In recent years, some powerful entrepreneurs and collectors in China have also spent huge sums of money overseas to buy their own cultural relics, or donate them to the country or hide treasures for the people. Even so, all these efforts can only be a drop in the bucket in the face of a huge number of lost cultural relics. It is no exaggeration to say that the cultural significance of China's cultural relics defense war is no less than that of War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression!