Should this Chinese man pay Christie for looted bronzes? (photo)

This guy bids via phone in Christie for looted bronzes.

Below are details from Yahoo.com

A Chinese art collector revealed himself as the man behind the winning bids for two imperial bronzes auctioned at Christie's over Beijing's objections, then announced he had no intention of paying the $36 million.

The audacious act of commercial sabotage exposes the tensions China and other countries, such as Greece and Egypt, face in trying to recover cultural objects plundered in war or stolen. One overseas expert in looted relics called the fake bids "brilliant" — a ploy likely to be copied in future disputed sales.

The bogus bids were the latest attempt by both the Chinese government and private citizens to block the sale of the pieces, which disappeared when French and British forces sacked and burned the imperial Summer Palace outside Beijing in 1860 at the end of the second Opium War. Chinese view the devastation of the palace as a national humiliation.

Auction house owner Cai Mingchao said Monday he put in telephone bids for the bronze rat and rabbit heads — part of a collection owned by the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent — during last week's auction in Paris. The three-day sale set a record for the most valuable private collection sold at auction, bringing more than $484 million.

"What I need to stress is that this money cannot be paid," Cai told a news conference in Beijing. "At the time, I was thinking that any Chinese would do this if they could ... I only did what I was obliged to."

Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent's longtime partner, told France-Info radio that he was not altogether surprised by the maneuver since he believes "the Chinese would have done anything to try to get back the pieces."

Berge said he would keep the bronzes if Cai doesn't pay up.

An official with Christie's in Paris on Monday confirmed the bronzes were still in the auction house's possession but would not give details. The official was not authorized to be publicly named, according to company policy.

Actually paying for the bronzes would equal paying ransom, some Chinese have said.

Cai's fake bids drew praise for patriotism, but others said the move could sink his career. Attempts to reach him after the news conference were unsuccessful.

The Chinese government said Monday it had nothing to do with the bids. The government had tried to stop the sale, saying the bronzes should be returned instead. Christie's stood by its right to sell them, and a French court rejected a Chinese group's petition to block the sale.

"I can't speak to the legalities of this collector's actions, but it is a brilliant move that is likely to be copycatted and has thrown a wrench in the market," said Lawrence Rothfield, author of the forthcoming book "The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum" and professor at the University of Chicago's Cultural Policy Center.

"But it is important to recognize that dealers and museums have made it easier for countries to demand repatriation of artifacts stolen many decades ago because they have not cleaned up their act," Rothfield added.

Julian Radcliffe, chairman of the London-based Art Loss Register, which maintains the world's largest database on stolen, missing and looted art, said China had a moral claim to the bronzes, but not a legal one.

"Legally there is no question that the French are in the right," he said. "Items taken by Napoleon to fill the Louvre, items taken in the 1860s — there is no question, those cannot legally be reclaimed by China. However, there is a moral and political dimension to this."

He said the latest development was a "publicity campaign" that may make it easier to come to a settlement with Berge and Christie's.

"Any activity like this does tend to cast a taint over the provenance of the item, which makes people think twice before attempting to buy it," he said.

In a statement, Christie's said, "We are aware of today's news reports. As a matter of policy, we do not comment on the identity of our consignors or buyers, nor do we comment or speculate on the next steps that we might take in this instance."

Cai's fake bids apparently were made in cooperation with China's Lost Cultural Relics Recovery Program, a group dedicated to repatriating looted Chinese art. On its Web site, the group describes itself as a non-governmental cultural body set up by collectors and scholars, and Cai serves as an adviser.

"This is an extraordinary method taken in an extraordinary situation, which successfully stopped the auction," the group's vice director, Niu Xianfeng, said at the press conference. If the bids are voided, the group won't do anything in response, Niu said.

China has intensified efforts to retrieve looted relics. When official protests against similar auctions failed, state-owned companies and rich Chinese individuals have stepped in to buy the pieces.

However, China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage put out a statement discouraging private collectors from buying the bronzes and returning them to China. The agency said Monday it had no idea about plans for a bogus bid.

"We did not know about this until the news conference this morning," said a woman who answered the phone at the administration. She declined to give her name, in line with official policy. "The people and the fund have absolutely no connections with us."

The stunt was admirable but too extreme, said Wang Linmao, a history professor at Zhejiang University who specializes in the late Qing period — the era when the imperial palace was sacked.

"It is now almost as if every time a looted Chinese relic gets auctioned overseas, Chinese people feel compelled to buy it back," Wang said. "I don't think this should be the case. It is a good thing if we can get them back, because it is about washing off the 100-year national humiliation. But it's not like we have to buy them back at all costs."