新聞對照：圓明園鼠、兔首法商無償捐贈大陸 - 打開聯合報看見紐約時報

BEIJING — One of France’s wealthiest businessmen has agreed to return to China two bronze animal heads that were looted from the imperial Summer Palace near Beijing by invading French and British troops in the 19th century, according to a report on Friday by China Radio International, a state news organization. To China, the looting of the palace epitomizes the humiliation it suffered at the hands of imperial Western powers during the Second Opium War.

The offer to return the heads came from François-Henri Pinault, one of 60 high-powered Frenchmen who are accompanying the French president, François Hollande, this week on his first visit to China. Mr. Hollande is seeking to strengthen diplomatic and trade relations with China, and also brought eight cabinet ministers.

Mr. Hollande has received a warm welcome since landing in Beijing on Thursday. The previous French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, angered Chinese leaders after he met with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, in 2008, months after a widespread Tibetan uprising in western China.

“It is easy to forget, watching China emerge as a great power, that the legacy of humiliation at the hands of modern imperialist aggressors back in the 19th century retains a palpable sense of immediacy even today,” said John Delury, a historian at Yonsei University in Seoul who, with Orville Schell, is writing a book on China’s quest for wealth and power. “So what might seem a rather obscure gesture of returning a pair of bronze animal heads takes on outsized significance as a kind of restitution of historical justice, a long-awaited righting of wrongs to the Chinese nation.”

The bronzes emerged as a point of contention between China and France in 2009, when Christie’s auction house handled the sale of the French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection after his death. Mr. Pinault is the chief executive officer of Kering, the company that owns Christie’s.

After China failed to block the sale legally, a Chinese businessman made successful bids totaling about $40 million for the heads, then refused to pay, citing national pride.

According to Mr. Pinault’s company, Mr. Pinault acquired them himself and decided to return them to China, which just this month decided to allow Christie’s to become the first international auction house to operate independently on the mainland. Mr. Pinault told Chinese officials that the heads would be returned by the second half of this year.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage in China said Mr. Pinault’s offer was “an expression of friendship toward the Chinese people,” according to a state news report.

“The Chinese side offers its high praise for this action and considers that it conforms with the spirit of relevant international cultural heritage protection treaties,” the government agency said.

The two bronzes, a rat head and a rabbit head, were among 12 animal heads, replicating the Chinese zodiac, in a central fountain clock at the palace, spewing water to tell time. All disappeared after the palace, also known as Yuanmingyuan and used by rulers of the Qing dynasty, was destroyed by Western troops in 1860.

So iconic are the animal heads that Ai Weiwei, the rebel artist, made a sculpture with versions of all 12. Typical of Mr. Ai, the sculpture was constructed with a sense of irony. It was first displayed in May 2011 at the Pulitzer Fountain in front of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan while Mr. Ai was being illegally detained in Beijing by security forces, and it quickly came to symbolize the constant conflict in China over issues of free speech.

The China Poly Group, a state-owned enterprise with ties to the People’s Liberation Army that has a museum and theater in Beijing, has acquired several of the animal heads, but the owners and locations of the rest remain unknown.

Mr. Pinault, 50, is the son of Kering’s founder, François Pinault, an art collector. The gift was from the Pinault family. The company has significant stakes in China, where some of its fashion brands, like Gucci, are doing well.

France has a significant trade deficit with China and wants more Chinese investment. But the French president is under some pressure to raise human rights issues with the new Communist Party leadership. Mr. Hollande doled out his criticisms more freely when he was simply the leader of the Socialist Party.

Mr. Hollande wants to reassure the Chinese that his government will protect the security of Chinese tourists in France and intends to discuss making it easier for Chinese to obtain visas.

Mr. Sarkozy had tendentious relations with Beijing after the meeting with the Dalai Lama in 2008. Relations deteriorated that year when Western and Tibetan protesters interrupted the Olympic torch relay when it passed through Paris on the way to Beijing.

Tensions eased just before France took the presidency of the Group of 20 in 2010. Ties became strained again when France criticized China’s reluctance to support the battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator.

圓明園鼠、兔首 法商無償捐贈大陸

北京圓明園流失十二生肖青銅像中的鼠首和兔首，法國皮諾家族買下這兩件獸首後，前天在北京宣布無償捐贈給圓明園；流失海外多年的十二生肖獸首，已有七尊回到大陸。

1860年英法聯軍燒毀圓明園後流失的十二獸首銅像，北京當局已購回牛首、虎首、猴首，另有澳門賭王何鴻燊捐贈馬首、豬首給北京後，再添鼠首、兔首，但仍有龍、蛇、羊、雞、狗等五銅首下落不明。市場傳言龍首可能藏身台灣。

鼠首、兔首上次公開露面，是2009年法國佳士得拍賣，當時引起大陸群情激憤，大陸律師團敦促拍賣行取消拍賣並歸還文物，但佳士得仍依約開賣。最終兩獸首約新台幣十億元被一買家買走，但該買家是大陸鬧場者，拍賣無疾而終。

皮諾家族的PPR集團，是全球第三大奢侈品集團。專家分析，2009年法國拍賣銅首時，很多媒體都指責皮諾家族是「支持藏獨」的勢力，不少大陸人開始抵制皮諾旗下奢侈品牌。皮諾如今捐出銅首，在商言商，若能換取大陸廣大消費者的青睞，是精明的買賣。

Frenchman Will Return to China Prized Bronze Artifacts Looted in 19th CenturyBy EDWARD WONG and STEVEN ERLANGER

Frenchman Will Return to China Prized Bronze Artifacts Looted in 19th Century
By EDWARD WONG and STEVEN ERLANGER