According to incomplete statistics of relevant department, no less than one million show-items of Chinese cultural relics are lost in over 200 museums of 47 countries and regions abroad.
The Beijing Youth Daily carried an article May 25 titled "US Returns 'Door-God' to China", in which some categories of show-items were enumerated:
For painting, the US Metropolitan Museum of Art claims the biggest collection of Chinese paintings, British Museum the finest;
For chinaware, Guimet Museum in France has the best of Chinese porcelain of almost all dynasties.
While Japan has China's ancient tortoise shells in largest number. Some 26,700 out of 200,000 pieces unearthed in Xiaotun Village of Henan Province were lost in Japan, the US, UK, etc, with Japan claiming as many as 12,443.
As for Dunhuang documents found existent, only 20,000 volumes remained within China. There are 13,700 in the British Library, 6,000 in Paris National Library, 12,000 in the Institute for Oriental Studies in St Petersburg, 2,000 in British Library Oriental and India Office Collections, and numberless in Japan, the US, Sweden, Austria and ROK.
(People’s Daily 05/28/2001)
