Chinese on a global treasure hunting mission

Chinese art experts are on a global "treasure hunting" mission, seeking to reclaim stolen antiquities "plundered" by foreign powers.

A delegation of Chinese cultural experts has swept through American institutions and museum for the past two weeks, in a bid to regain items once ensconced at the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, which was one of the world’s most richly appointed imperial residences until British and French troops plundered it in 1860.

China’s "treasure hunting team" descended on the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last week and fired off questions about the provenance of objects on display.

Taking a close look at a collection of jade pieces, the delegation sought documentation to show that the pieces had been acquired legally, the New York Times reported.

"China is like an adolescent who took too many steroids," said Liu Kang, a professor of Chinese studies at Duke University.

"It has suddenly become big, but it finds it hard to coordinate and control its body. To the West, it can look like a monster," he was quoted as saying by the Times. The destruction of the Old Summer Palace remains a crucial event epitomizing China’s fall from greatness.

The communist regime, emboldened by newfound wealth, is on a noisy campaign to reclaim relics that disappeared during its so-called century of humiliation, the period between 1842 and 1945 when foreign powers subjugated China through military incursions and onerous treaties.