Beijing's Old Summer Palace, or Yuanmingyuan, has embarked on a global hunt for relics looted from the site nearly 150 years ago by British and French troops.
A team of specialists would target museums and libraries in the United States, Europe and Japan, including the British Museum, the Palace of Fontainebleau in France and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Chen Mingjie, head of administration at the Old Summer Palace park in north Beijing, told the Beijing News.
Chen estimated that 1.5 million items lost from the park were in 2,000 collections in 47 countries. However, he admitted the authorities had no idea how many relics had been plundered because the catalogue of the treasures stored in the garden was burned when British and French troops torched the palace after looting it.
The destruction of the royal park during the second opium war in 1860 is viewed as one of China's greatest humiliations.
Liu Yang, who will lead the survey team, said repatriation itself was not on their agenda.
'To be realistic, where could we keep the items even if they are returned?' he said. 'The Old Summer Palace Park doesn't even have a modern museum.'
