Beijing, 30 March 2012
According to an article published on 29 March 2012 on China Daily’s website, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH) plans to reinforce regulation to put an end to the country’s trade of counterfeit antiquities.
Li Yaoshen, head of SACH’s regulation bureau, considers the situation chaotic, reiterating that auction houses exploit laws and regulations as a way of fooling buyers. He explains that according to the current auction law, a seller or auction house only needs to claim that the authenticity of an object is not guaranteed so as to be exempt from any prosecution on behalf of the buyer. Additionally, it states that a number of clandestine auction houses do not possess business certificates.
With the increase of several potential buyers and the value of antiquities recorded in the last few years, this problem has been raised to a new level. Recently, a jade furniture set composed of a stool and dresser created a scandal. Presented as dating from the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), the pieces of furniture were sold for 220 million yaun (26.2 million euros). Experts were skeptical about this stool’s authenticity as Chinese people from this era normally sat on the floor, remarking the anachronistic aspect of this antiquity. An internet user claimed that the stool resembled contemporary work made by craftsmen Zhao from the Jiangsu provence and said the true value was about 500,000 yuan. Zhao stepped forward as the creator of these pieces, but experts persisted in defending the authenticity of these “antiquities.”
Li Yaoshen states that his administration is working to reinforce the control of authenticity of pieces sold at auction in the country by specifying responsibilities of auction houses and sellers, as well as improving cooperation between cultural, economic, police, and fiscal services aiming to crack down on clandestine auctioneers. These measures will be accompanied by the use of sanctions.