Chinese Bidder Says He Won’t Pay for Looted Bronzes - NYTimes.com

“The Western powers have plundered a great number of Chinese cultural relics,” said Ma Zhaoxu, a ministry spokesman, quoted in the state-run newspaper China Daily. He said many relics had been looted from the Summer Palace in particular.

“All these,” he said, “should be returned to China.”

Mr. Bergé defiantly told the government it could have the heads if it would “observe human rights and give liberty to the Tibetan people and welcome the Dalai Lama.”

How is this defiance? It’s just acting retarded. Western powers treated China poorly and sacked and looted Chinese national treasures, and now some French guy holds said stolen treasures hostage because China is treating some ethnic minority poorly? And he’s purporting to take some kind of moral high ground? None of this makes sense to me. Anyway, his proposed deal is completely disingenuous because obviously it’s not a real deal that China would take. Grandstanding does not amount to defiance; it’s closer to idiocy.