WEBVTT - Why is Chinese art being stolen? 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.880 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.200 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.760 Should Know, and we're going to talk a little bit 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:23.759 about Chinese art heists. So let's get started. 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.480 Go that's right, big thanks to Olivia, she did a 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:29.760 banger of an article. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.639 For us, But also thanks to you. Where'd you come 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:32.479 up with this idea? 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:39.599 Oh? Was this a recommendation? God, I'm so bad about that. 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:46.519 I don't know. But we also have to thank reporter 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.400 for GQ magazine named Alex W. Palmer, who in twenty 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:54.959 eighteen wrote a pretty a banger of an article as 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:00.520 well about these art heists of cultural, very specific cultural 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.520 and art artifacts from China that have been stolen from 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.240 museums in the twenty tens and basically pose the question 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.920 is the Chinese government behind this? Right? 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.480 Are they commissioning people to rob art museums? And I 0:01:14.520 --> 0:01:19.039 mean not just like you know, some Tinkertown museum on 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:22.920 the corner of a neighborhood that like, I don't know, 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.440 you know, not a good museum. So talking like world 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.520 class museums like the Fountain Blue and outside Paris, Paris, 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:35.360 France said it's not Texas. Yeah, so yeah, there's like 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:40.080 a still to this day, people don't know exactly what 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.720 the deal was, and it seems like despite what Palmer 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.679 Alex Palmer was saying, Palmer basically was like, you know, 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.920 didn't point the finger directly, but that was kind of 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.760 the premise of the article that who knows who's behind this, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.960 and it's possible that the government of China has some 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.640 hand in it, but also the Chinese art market, as 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.920 we'll see, has blown up so much that it's also 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.160 entirely possible that it's just like that makes a lot 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.880 of sense for thieves to steal Chinese art. The thing 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.160 is is these the string of particular heists that Alex 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.760 Palmer talks about that really kind of form this galaxy 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.680 of particular heights. The thieves would go in and steal 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.320 really specific stuff that were Chinese antiquities. A lot of 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.519 times they've been looted, and they would walk right past 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.480 other things that were really really valuable, and it almost 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.200 seemed like they had a shopping list of items that 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:43.280 were particularly Chinese that they wanted to steal. 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.440 Yeah, I don't think almost seem like it. That seems 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:48.280 like a certainty to me. 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:52.640 It's true, it is. You could see that like you know, 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:59.680 Imperial Seal, China dog or that the waving cat. That's fortunate, 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:04.320 and then you know eggs, butter and apples. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:04.960 Yeah, the Picasso. 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:09.200 Nah, they just walk right past really expensive stuff. But yeah, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:10.960 it wasn't because they didn't know what they were doing. 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.000 It seems like some of the people who were caught 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.919 with this were clearly professional thieves. 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.079 Yeah, and some not so great. But we'll get to that. 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:21.960 We should do a little backstory here to kind of 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:23.640 set this all up, and we are going to go 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.000 back to about one hundred and close to one hundred 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.240 and ten year period known as the Century of Humiliation, 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:33.840 and this is when China was kind of getting just 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.720 beat up on all fronts. Back then, a lot of 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.800 global powers at the time were kind of coming in 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.600 and saying, you know, in China, you should just sort 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.400 of listen to us and do what we say. Particularly 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.400 during the Opium Wars from eighteen forty one to eighteen sixty, 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.920 a lot of European countries in the UK forced China to, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.480 you know, to accept treaties they didn't want to accept, 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.760 force them to accept opium import Yeah. I think it 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:07.920 was nineteen different countries, you know, opening these treaty ports 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.360 for imports from those nineteen countries and accept them and 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.360 basically said you have no choice in the matter. Add 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:16.280 to this, later that century, in the eighteen nineties to 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:21.240 nineteen hundreds, when China battled with Japan, which ended up 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:25.240 losing parts of Manchuria, losing Taiwan had a lot of 0:04:25.240 --> 0:04:27.599 control over Korea at the time. That was, you know, 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.000 they no longer had control over And this all sort 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:35.400 of leads up to the Chinese Communist Party taking power 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.600 and chairman Mao Zeidong saying in nineteen forty nine, We're 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.240 not going to be subject to insult in humiliation any longer. 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.920 That century of humiliation was a dark part of our 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:49.040 past and we need to forget about it. 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.000 Yeah. So this idea, this concept of the century of 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:57.320 humiliation was coined by Mao, and then the twenty first century, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:01.120 the Chinese Communist Party that Mao founded have kind of 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:05.560 really kind of used that as a point of pride 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:11.200 and as a point of unity among the country, which 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.320 is really interesting because it's it. They view it as 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.000 a really shameful period of their history, and yet they 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:20.919 it does generate pride in them and brings them together, 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:23.120 and I think a sense of like we're going to 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.120 overcome that, We're never going to go back to that. 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.560 But that's a change from how Chairman Mao approached it. 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.680 He was like, we're never turning backwards, and in fact, 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:34.880 everything that reminds us of the past, we're just going 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:38.240 to destroy. So go into museums, go into libraries, go 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:43.640 into you know, anywhere that like landmarks, things that remind 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.240 us of the past. They call them the four Olds 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.719 that were just meant to be destroyed. And it was 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.080 the cultural revolution, is what they called it. And that's 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.920 how it was approached for the for about fifty years, 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.080 and then finally it kind of turned and then that 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.800 pride kind of extended to Chinese antiquities, and in particular 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:09.599 today in China, there's a tremendous amount of there's a 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:14.280 tremendous sense of loss over some particular items that came 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:19.360 from a particular place called the yuan ming Yu. The 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.080 Garden of perfect Brightness, I think is what it's called, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.880 but less formally it's called the Old Summer Palace. It's 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:30.400 in Beijing, I believe, and it was magnificent from what 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.880 I can tell. 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:35.080 Yeah, it was. And these aren't the only things. I mean, 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:40.479 all Chinese artifacts and cultural relics were looked at this way. 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:42.720 But this was just a pretty notable space at the 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.640 time it was built in seventeen oh nine, and then 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.000 for the next century and a half basically just got 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.279 bigger and bigger, and it had temples, it had gardens 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.200 and pools, and it had a lot of art, all 0:06:55.440 --> 0:06:57.320 kinds of art like you name it. They had it 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.159 some of the most important art of you know, that 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:04.520 period of China and preceding it. And during the Second 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:10.320 Opium War in eighteen sixty, the Europeans you know, were 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.320 again coming in and kind of doing their thing against China, 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.360 and the government of China said, you know what, you 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.840 have some people here on a negotiating mission. We're going 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.440 to capture them, We're going to torture them. And so 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.760 British I think about five thousand British and French forces 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.960 took part in what has been kind of looked back 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.560 on now as one of the greatest acts of cultural 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:39.600 vandalism in modern history when they looted and either stole 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:44.200 or just could just outright destroyed or vandalize everything at 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:45.960 the Old Summer Palace essentially. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.720 Yeah, they were apparently already in the process of looting 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.400 the palace when they heard about the torture deaths of 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.040 that delegation that was trying to broker peace for the 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.920 Second Opium War, and they're like, oh, okay, well, I 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.240 guess we'll burn the place down too, And they did 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:04.240 so over I think two days and nights, but the 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.800 fire kept going for like three days, and rather than rebuild, 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.280 China decided to preserve the place in ruins. It's kind 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:16.680 of like Hiroshima, like they decided to preserve some of 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:20.720 the bombed out areas. It's just a reminder, but rather 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.880 than a reminder to never use nukes ever again, this 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:29.000 was a reminder to China of like what outside powers 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:32.200 did to China, Like this is what happened to China 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.520 in the past, and it's something to use to kind 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:39.480 of motivate you to become the best kind of China 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.800 there is that could never let something like that happen again. 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.319 Yeah, a lot of this stuff, as you would imagine, 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.640 like a lot of you know, looted things during wartime 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.199 ended up in control of royalty in other countries, private 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.400 collection sometimes, but a lot of royal palaces in Europe 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.800 ended up with this stuff. Queen Victoria even and this 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.840 is a great little fine from Libya. Besides art, Queen 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.080 Victoria apparently also got a Pekinese dog that she named 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.599 Lootie as in loot. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.840 Yeah, as in the dog itself was looted, yeah, exactly. 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.600 And I think it was the first Pekinese in all 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.320 of England, I would believe it. I also read that 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.920 at the time the press reported that the dog had 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.200 to be taken to a different palace because it was 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:28.200 being ostracized by the other dogs for its Eastern ways, 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:30.199 whatever that means. 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.280 Well. One of the most prized sort of things at 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.680 this palace was this water clock, and it was you know, 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:39.320 don't think of it as a normal clock, because it 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:41.840 was what it really was was a big fountain and 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:44.800 the twelve spouts were carved in the shape of the 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:47.880 heads of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, and whenever 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.760 one of the fountains squirted, that was what time it was. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.480 So that was it became a really big symbol of 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:01.800 this whole looting. Basically it was in the European wing 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:06.800 of the palace, but it went away and part of 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.600 and again they were, you know, some of these some 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:13.719 of the repatriation and these tests. As we'll see, it 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:16.240 was all kinds of stuff, but it seems like that 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.439 these fountain heads hold particular significance. 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.120 They're the most symbolic. So again, this Summer Palace stuff, 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.240 it was just such a big deal, like you said, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.760 one of the biggest acts of cultural vandalism ever. It's 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:33.120 such a symbol in this country of China's shame, and 0:10:33.200 --> 0:10:37.920 these things are like the greatest symbol of that larger symbol, 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:42.720 Like these zodiac heads mean everything to China, and to 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.559 get them back is enormous. The Commist Party kind of 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.600 took a shift, especially as China became more and more 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:54.000 economically powerful, and it started to kind of look at 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:57.720 getting some of these antiquities back rather than looking at 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:02.240 them as reminders of some terrible backwards passed. They became 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.240 part of China's heritage, and the Chinese government in particular 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.959 started to want to get these back, and they started 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.440 a kind of a trend I think culturally that was like, Hey, 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:17.959 start having pride in these heritage antiques, and let's see 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.800 if we can get them back into China. How who cares? 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:21.760 Just go get them? 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.959 Yeah, And one good way to do that is I 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:26.920 have a ton of money. So a lot of billionaires 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.200 from China obviously stepped forward and showed a lot of 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.640 interest in growing their collections or probably even starting and 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.400 then growing in their collections of Chinese art from history, 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.080 and some of them even open private museums to showcase 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.600 this stuff. They were working with the auction houses very closely, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.000 and like you mentioned earlier, the Chinese art market, it 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.679 went from really not much of anything in the year 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:54.840 two thousand to about a billion dollars a year in 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.360 value by twenty eighteen, especially this stuff that was looted 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.520 by the UK and by Europe and the United States. 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.360 And like I said, it's everything you can think of. 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.880 It's you know, statues, paintings, carvings, in any kind of 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:15.400 art you can imagine. According to UNESCO, close to one 0:12:15.400 --> 0:12:19.480 point seven million Chinese objects are currently held in forty 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.720 seven countries other than China in two hundred different museums. 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.760 And those are just museums in just forty seven countries. 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.880 I saw that the Chinese government itself estimates as there's 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:33.680 about ten million antiquities spread throughout the world outside of China, 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:38.360 and China considers basically all of these stolen. Even if 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:40.640 a Westerner came in and paid for them back in 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:46.880 nineteen hundred, the Chinese government basically considers whoever sold it 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.680 to have been taken advantage of by that westerner. So 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.960 if you have a piece of Chinese art and antique 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.000 that's Chinese. 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:56.560 Hang on to it. 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.280 You may want to hide it actually, because there's a 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.520 good chance that China considers that stolen and that that's 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.439 not rightfully yours. Maybe there's some law in your country 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:10.640 that says it's yours. China doesn't really recognize that because 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:17.360 in a lot of cases they weren't They weren't sold legitimately, 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:21.120 they were stolen. They were part of war loot, like 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:24.120 with the Old Summer Palace. And they have a great point. 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:26.480 There's a lot of stuff out there, not just from China, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:29.600 but from other countries that colonial powers went to and 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:32.720 said we really like this, We're going to literally steal it, 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.360 and we're going to display in our museums in one 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:37.120 hundred and fifty years from now, you're going to ask 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:38.959 for it back and we're going to say no. 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:42.240 Yeah, but we're going to ask for our stuff back 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:42.800 and get. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.240 Most of it right after World War two, right. 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:47.640 Yeah, which we'll you know, we'll talk more about that, 0:13:47.679 --> 0:13:49.640 I guess in a little bit. But as far as 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:54.840 the government's involvement officially, there was one group called the 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.079 China poly Group. It's a state owned industrial company and 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.240 it was original part of the Chinese military and they 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.400 traded arms. But in two thousand they said, you know what, 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.080 let's diversify and let's start a wing of this company 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:12.520 called poly Culture, and let's make it one of our 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:15.320 missions to go and get some of these artifacts. They 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:17.599 had their own museum to put some of these in 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.280 in Beijing. So that was one of the big sort 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:23.480 of groups trying to head up this effort along with 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:28.600 the Chinese billionaires. And then in two thousand, Sotheby's and 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.160 Christie's auction houses in Hong Kong auctioned off three of 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:35.680 those heads, three of those zodiac fountain heads, and this 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.560 was a big deal. The Chinese Bureau of Cultural Relics 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:42.080 was like, you can't sell this stuff like this stuff's 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.040 really important to us. It was stolen, it was looted. 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.040 They had no luck. I think they were trying to 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.240 get it back for free, and they eventually said all right, 0:14:50.320 --> 0:14:51.920 well we'll just bid on it and get it the 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:53.320 old fashioned way, which they. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:58.160 Did, right. Okay, So in two thousand China, China, as 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.760 far as like it's searched for repatriating its art and antiquities, 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.400 was so powerless that Christie's and Sotheby's felt comfortable telling 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.400 the government of China, sorry, now, we're not going to 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.120 give these back to you. Less than ten years later, 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.880 in two thousand and nine, when the estate of East 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:21.320 Aves Saint Laurent went up for auction, China contacted Christie's 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.280 and said, hey, you're about to auction off two more 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.040 of those zodiac heads. If you do it, it's going 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.080 to be really bad for you. And China had become 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.280 such a player in the global art market that Christie's 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.280 would they handed them over. They gave them to them, 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.200 and in exchange, I think Christie's was the first auction 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.480 house to have an independent or license to independently operate 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.520 in China. Within the next year or something like that, 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.720 so that's how powerful they became. And then also as 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:53.920 kind of a nod to how valuable Chinese antiquities became 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.000 when China started to become interested in them, there was 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:00.800 an auction in twenty fifteen, less than two decades after 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:05.040 China became interested in its own heritage. The presale of 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:08.840 this the sixteen inch vase, sorry, this is twenty ten, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.320 a sixteen inch vase. Presale value was eight hundred thousand dollars. 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:16.120 A half hour after it went under the gavel, it 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.160 sold for almost seventy million dollars to a Chinese billionaire. 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:21.920 It's a lot of dough, it is. 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:25.520 It also just shows how bad they want this stuff back, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.400 because there's one other thing, Chuck, you mentioned the billionaire's 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.400 gating involved. It's not just one way to show off 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.720 how much money they have. It's also to show everybody 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.040 how patriotic they are, because they're buying these things at 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.760 astronomical prices to bring back to China for China. 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.600 For sure. So let's take a break and we'll come 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.960 back and talk about what China was going to do 0:16:47.000 --> 0:17:19.960 about this officially right after this, all right, so we're 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:22.639 back and wondering what China was going to officially do 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.760 about this. In two thousand and nine, the government said, 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:29.760 you know what, We're all bets are off. Now, We're 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.400 officially gonna get a treasure hunting team together, and we're 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.879 going to go send them around the world and investigate 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.359 all this art that's in the United States, that's in Europe, 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.240 that's in the UK. One of these guys, one of 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.560 the chief detectives, whose name was Lou Yang, and he 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:47.560 went all over the place and he was like, Hey, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:50.520 this was in the Summer Palace. This was in the 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.560 Summer Palace. You guys have our stuff, And they noticed 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:56.800 kind of not too long after that, a lot of 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.359 these museums on their website started sort of quietly moving 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.000 mentions and web pages about these Chinese artifacts on their websites. 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.960 Yeah, Lou Yang had quite a reputation. I read in 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:12.320 that Alex Palmer GQ article that he wrote a comprehensive 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.480 book on all the looted antiquities, at least from the 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:20.320 old Summer Palace, and could show you printouts of websites 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:24.119 from museums around the world where that thing was being held. 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.680 So I guess there was also a really tense meeting 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.880 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York when 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.440 he showed up too, because he would just walk around 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.200 and be like, that's China's, that's China's that was stolen, 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.080 that was looted, and very strangely, that was what'd you 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.600 say two thousand and nine. Yeah, the very next year 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.000 the string of museum heists of Chinese antiquities began. 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.640 Yeah, for sure. I did want to point out though, 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.360 when I was making the previous point that they took 0:18:54.400 --> 0:18:58.920 down these websites, but not everybody, because the fontaine Bleue 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.520 and Ants was one of those that were like, no, 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:04.360 you can see right here on our website and we'll 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:06.960 tell you like what this is and when and where 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:10.200 it was looted, like what palace was sacked at the time, 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:13.199 So they kind of, you know, held firm in their 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.480 belief that it was theirs. I guess. But yeah, these 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:22.120 robberies started in twenty ten, and we don't know exactly 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.040 how many of these have happened. We're going to talk 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.880 about quite a few of these, but they were detailed 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:29.600 in the GQ article, and then since twenty eighteen, there's 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.120 also been more and it seems like it there may 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:36.600 have been a concerted effort and then other people just started, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.600 you know, because they became really valuable and there was 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:41.320 a market for it, people kind of piggybacked on stealing 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.399 this Chinese art and that the entire thing may not 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:48.359 be some you know, complete masterminded by one group or 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:49.240 government kind of thing. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.320 Yeah, that was my interpretation too. 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:52.400 Yeah. 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:57.560 So apparently the whole thing started in Stockholm, Sweden, at 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:03.080 the Drottningholm Palace, which is well a Swedish royal palace, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.560 and they have a Chinese pavilion there and there's a 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:12.119 state owned collection of Chinese antiquities. And on August six, 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:17.560 twenty ten, they it was quite a surprise because there 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:19.679 was a group of cars that were set fire to 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.280 elsewhere in Stockholm, and as the police ran over there, 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.560 and we're very much distracted by these sudden car fires 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.919 because usually that means riot, so I can imagine that 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:34.760 put the police on edge. The thieves ran over to 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:39.640 the palace in their China pavilion, Chinese pavilion, and started 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.280 ransacking some specific items. I think they smashed three display 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.479 cases and I'm not sure how many items they stole, 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:50.760 but I believe it seemed pretty specific and they were 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.800 out of there in six minutes, so they were clearly pros. 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.080 Do you think the Swedish police were like, guys, we 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.439 might have our first riot in the country's history. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.399 I've been waiting for this since I was a boy. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:04.639 I've been told a car fire means a riot. They 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:06.680 were like, what is a riot? And it's well, Spin, 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:08.520 we'll explain it to you. 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:10.600 Spin's been out of the country before. 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.480 So yeah, smash and grab, six minutes in and out. 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.080 They hopped on some mopeds, they drove those over to 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:20.560 a lake and they got on a boat and they 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.240 got out of there. And this was a very sort 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:27.680 of you know, clearly professional job. Knew exactly what they 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:29.159 were going for, and you'll see, you know, in a 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.120 lot of these cases it's pretty similar, like they knew 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.639 where this stuff was, they knew exactly what they wanted 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.000 on their little grocery list, like you mentioned. The next 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:40.600 one was a few months after that at the Code 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.879 Museum in Norway. They busted a glass ceiling and not 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.080 in a good way and repelled down just like a movie. 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.360 Yeah, just like Charles Groden and Miss Picky, that's right. 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.240 And took fifty six things from the China collection. There. 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:58.720 A lot of this stuff was from a Norwegian army 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:04.320 officer named Johannville Norman Munt, who was a big art guy. 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:09.520 Eventually fought on China's side in the Sino Japanese Wars 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.119 in eighteen ninety four and eighteen ninety five, but he 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:14.440 was big into art, had a lot of this stuff, 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.840 including stuff from the Summer Palace, and that stuff was 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.520 taken in the first of the Code Museum's burglaries. 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:27.119 Right, yeah, there was another one, what three years later, 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:29.840 And this is a big deal, and a museum gets 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:35.400 struck like it's not good, especially if word gets out, because, 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:38.040 as Livia was pointing out, museums a lot of times 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:41.080 don't announce the fact that they've been robbed. Number One, 0:22:41.320 --> 0:22:46.760 it's very humiliating because they're entrusted with protecting these things 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:50.680 that are part of humanity's cultural heritage. And then secondly, 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:53.119 it also practically means that they need to beef up 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.960 security because now thieves are on alert, like, oh, the 0:22:56.000 --> 0:22:58.720 Code Museum is really easy to break into, and they'll 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.440 become a much bigger target. So for two different break 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:06.800 ins to become public knowledge, it's just not really a 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.239 good thing, but it was also very curious that they 0:23:09.240 --> 0:23:12.360 were both they both seemed to be Chinese art heists. 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:18.360 Right after that, they suddenly became very interested in negotiating 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:21.520 with China to give back some of the antiquities that 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.159 they held, and in particular Chinese billionaire named Huang Nubo. 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:27.720 I'm quite sure that's not exactly how you say his 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.760 last name, because I said it like I'm from Mississippi 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:37.159 or something. He came to Stockholm or no Bergen and said, 0:23:37.240 --> 0:23:39.200 what do you got. I can give you a donation 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.879