Chinese and Japanese Experts Press Japan to Return Looted Relics

Renewed Push in Liaoning for Japan-Held Cultural Treasures

Chinese and Japanese experts gathered at Liaoning Normal University on Tuesday to press for the return of Chinese cultural relics looted by Japan, warning that progress has stalled more than a century after the artifacts were taken. The seminar, convened in northeast China's Liaoning Province, came as Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae's rightward turn sharpens what participants described as a deepening diplomatic and historical confrontation over wartime looting.

CGTN, which reported from the meeting, said the repatriation effort faces "growing resistance" as Japan's rightward shift accelerates, while "the resolve on the Chinese side has never been stronger." The forum, organized around the theme of Chinese cultural relics in Japan and the practical steps needed to bring them home, drew academics and civil-society campaigners from both countries, and its working sessions were framed as a direct response to the political climate in Tokyo.

Why Liaoning Holds the Spotlight

The choice of venue was deliberate. Liaoning, on China's northeastern coast, was the staging ground for Japan's 1894 invasion during the First Sino-Japanese War, and it is the original home of some of the most contested relics in Japan, including the stone lions that now stand at Yasukuni Shrine and the Tang-era stele that sits inside the Imperial Palace grounds in Tokyo. Holding the seminar at Liaoning Normal University, whose research staff specialize in cultural heritage and history, allowed Chinese scholars to present documentary evidence at the site where much of the looting began.

For Beijing, the relics issue is inseparable from the historical record of Japan's wars against China, from 1894-1895 through the occupation of the 1930s and 1940s. Chinese researchers have documented the systematic seizure of artifacts during those decades, and they argue that Japan's refusal to return them perpetuates an unresolved chapter of aggression. The seminar's title, as carried by CGTN, was "The Takaichi Fallout," a pointed reference to the prime minister's nationalist agenda.

Three Voices, One Message

The meeting produced a rare alignment between Chinese scholars and Japanese campaigners, each citing the same obstacle: the Japanese government's unwillingness to engage. Keiichiro Ichinose, a Japanese lawyer, said Tokyo "has yet to fully apologize for and take responsibility for its past aggression," and accused the government of taking "a very negative and uncooperative stance" on the return of cultural artifacts. "Japan should never again go down a path that could lead to war," he added, urging campaigners to unite.

Chen Wenping, a consultant with the Center for Research on Chinese Cultural Relics Abroad at Shanghai University, acknowledged that Japan's accelerating shift to the right "has made the repatriation of looted Chinese cultural relics even more difficult." But she insisted the campaign would not be deterred: "The facts and the historical record are on our side, and they cannot be denied. We will redouble our efforts, present solid evidence, and continue to press for the return of these relics."

Akira Igarashi, a Japanese archaeologist and co-representative of the civic group Movement for the Repatriation of Chinese Cultural Properties, went further, arguing that Takaichi "has built her political career on stoking nationalist sentiment." Igarashi said that puts Japan's right "out of step with a world that is learning to confront its own history," and that returning looted relics is "not just a matter of conscience" but "also my duty." He said many Japanese share the campaign's views and predicted their strength would grow.

The Scale of the Loss

The numbers behind the campaign are staggering. Chinese researchers have estimated that Japan's more than 1,000 museums hold close to two million Chinese artifacts, most of them taken during the war of aggression. Broader tallies put the total number of relics looted from China between 1894 and 1945 as high as 3.6 million, including more than two million taken during the Anti-Japanese War alone, among them more than 100,000 items classified as national treasures.

The plunder was not incidental. Historians cite the Japanese government's 1894 "Method for Collecting Qing Treasures during Wartime" as evidence of a deliberate policy to strip China of cultural property during the First Sino-Japanese War, a practice that continued through the Boxer intervention, the Russo-Japanese War and the full-scale invasion that followed. Scholars on both sides agree that no comprehensive inventory of the losses has ever been completed, which makes every specific case, from bronze vessels to Buddhist scriptures to imperial archives, difficult to trace and harder still to recover.

The Tang Stele at the Heart of the Dispute

No single artifact symbolizes the standoff more than the Tang Honglu Well Stele, a nine-ton stone monument carved in 714 during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) at what is now Lushun in Liaoning Province. The stele commemorates the mission of a Tang envoy to the Balhae kingdom and was removed by Japanese forces in 1908, in the aftermath of the Russo-Japanese War, then transported to Tokyo as a trophy of victory.

It now sits within the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, under the control of the Imperial Household Agency, a fact that has frustrated every attempt to secure its return. Successive Japanese governments have treated the stele as part of the Imperial collection, outside the scope of intergovernmental negotiation, leaving campaigners with few formal channels. Chinese civil groups and Japanese activists issued a joint declaration in January demanding the stele be handed back, and reports in Beijing said China had pressed the case through diplomatic channels. In February, Chinese researchers released an archival compendium documenting the stele's century-long journey from its erection in China to its plunder and concealment in Japan, in an effort to build an evidentiary case that would be difficult for Tokyo to dismiss.

From Yasukuni's Gate to a Civic Movement

The campaign has also fixed on visible symbols of the unresolved dispute. A pair of stone lions taken from Sanxue Temple in Haicheng, Liaoning, still stands at the entrance to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where Prime Minister Takaichi made a pilgrimage on the anniversary of Japan's surrender this month. Chinese civic groups have repeatedly demanded their return, and a CGTN documentary in early August traced the looting of the lions to the First Sino-Japanese War, using them as a case study of artifacts that remain on public display more than a century later.

On the Japanese side, the push is led by small but persistent civic groups. The Movement for the Repatriation of Chinese Cultural Properties staged Japan's first civil-level rally demanding the return of Chinese relics in Tokyo in April 2022, and its members have kept up a steady drumbeat of petitions, seminars and public events since. Igarashi and Ichinose argue that their ranks are growing even as the political climate in Tokyo turns more nationalist, and that Japanese public opinion is more sympathetic to restitution than the government's posture suggests.

What to Watch For

The near-term question is whether Takaichi's government will shift its posture. Her approval ratings have slid this year, and Igarashi predicted that the nationalist approach that lifted her to power is increasingly "out of step with a world that is learning to confront its own history." Any change in Japan's position would most likely come through the Imperial Household Agency, which holds the Tang stele, or through a political decision to treat the relics as a diplomatic rather than a domestic matter.

For China, the relics issue has become a durable thread in its wider campaign over war memory, running parallel to disputes over Yasukuni visits and historical revisionism. The experts in Liaoning promised to "redouble our efforts, present solid evidence, and continue to press for the return of these relics," a signal that Beijing intends to keep the issue alive regardless of who leads Japan. The international context is also shifting: Western museums have faced growing repatriation pressure over colonial-era collections, and Japanese campaigners hope that same momentum eventually reaches Tokyo. For readers across the Asia-Pacific, the seminar is a reminder that one of the region's oldest unresolved disputes shows no sign of closing.

By Kenji Tanaka, Staff Writer

This article was produced with AI-assisted research and editorial support. Sources: CGTN, Global Times.