NEW WAYS OF SHARING: A RELATIONAL APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE GROUNDWORK FOR SINO-JAPANESE REPATRIATION Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Zheng Zhang School of Museum Studies University of Leicester September 2018 Abstract New Ways of Sharing: A relational approach to understanding the groundwork for Sino-Japanese repatriation Zheng Zhang A large amount of Chinese cultural relics have been scattered globally through illegal and unethical approaches, including war plunder, illegal excavation, illicit export and burglary, from the war era (1840-1949) to contemporary China (1949-). Chinese-Japanese repatriation is one of the most complicated issues, which contains a broad framework of disputes including a complex historical background, sensitive political relations, a host of legal disputes and a web of ethical dilemmas. This thesis explores three potential models with relevance for Sino-Japanese repatriation: creating a long-term system of short-term physical access (through international exchange); sharing physical access (through a repatriation agreement that loans the object back to the repatriating nation at regular intervals), sharing digital access (through international digitisation). It argues that these small but significant steps of sharing cultural heritage, particularly in environments with a long history of mistrust such as the Sino-Japanese situation, can create trust and mutual understanding needed to overcome paralysis and lay the ground work for what could be a more open, sustainable process of negotiating repatriation based on reciprocity. ii Acknowledgement This research would not be completed without the support of all my interviewees, both in China and Japan. With regard to such a sensitive research topic, they were so generous and kind to communicate with, formally and informally, providing me with such fruitful information and their personal feelings to support my research. I must sincerely show my thanks to the community of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, particularly my supervisor, Janet Marstine, who is so supportive, illuminating and patient to encourage and guide me in the whole research process. I also need to thank Viv Golding and David Unwin, who provided their useful suggestions to help me improve the quality of this thesis. Cecial and Sipei, words cannot fully convey my appreciation for what you have done for me during these years. Your warm encouragement and constructive advice on my research and my life gave me enough courage to face any difficulties and challenges that I encountered over these years. Kuan-yin and Jiaying, I felt so fortunate to meet you here. Without you, my life will be so boring and full of mental sufferings. Kuan-yin, you are the one with whom I can share all my complaints and anxieties freely. Jiaying, you are my constant source of happiness, who filled my spare time with real fun in your unique way. iii Table of Content Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgement ....................................................................................................... iii Table of Content ........................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ............................................................................................................... vi Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Chapter Two: The Sino-Japanese relationship and its impacts upon Sino-Japanese repatriation ................................................................................................................... 37 Chapter Three: Methodology ....................................................................................... 58 Chapter Four: Sharing physical access to cultural heritage through Sino-Japanese exchange exhibitions .................................................................................................... 99 Chapter Five: Sharing physical access to cultural property through the strategy of long-term loan ............................................................................................................ 127 Chapter Six: Sharing digital access to cultural heritage: International Dunhuang Project ........................................................................................................................ 158 Chapter Seven: Conclusion ........................................................................................ 196 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 214 iv List of Tables Table 1: An overview of interviews conducted in the fieldwork………...………90 v List of Figures Figure 3.1. Theoretical structure of the research ......................................................... 62 Figure 3.2. Four main sites of the fieldwork ............................................................... 93 Figure 3.3. The location of informants in Chinese and Japanese branches of International Dunhuang Project ................................................................................... 97 Figure 5.1. The Buddhist statue in Miho Museum, Japan ......................................... 129 Figure 5.2. The stolen Buddhist statue published in a Chinese journal ..................... 129 Figure 5.3. The Miho Museum .................................................................................. 130 Figure 6.1. One painting consists of three different pieces in three countries ........... 171 Figure 6.2. A duplicate of a Dunhuang manuscript in exhibition .............................. 172 Figure 6.3. Cooperative network in Internatinal Dunhuang Project .......................... 179 Figure 6.4. Ideal model of international cooperation between China and Japan in Internatinal Dunhuang Project ................................................................................... 181 vi Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Research context Repatriation is not a new concept, but has attracted scholarly attention and discussion in a global context since the late twentieth century (Sullivan, Abraham, et al 2000, Conaty 2008, Turnbull and Pickering 2010). It refers to a broad scope of cultural property that left its community/country of origin through war/colonial plunder during a colonialist period and/or illegal approaches such as illicit trafficking and theft. With the rapid development of some economies, the independence of former colonial and other occupation-related countries/communities, and the development of domain of cultural rights, requests for the repatriation of cultural property have been rising rapidly (Atkinson, 2010). Repatriation is not simply a topic within the scope of national culture, but more complicated in that it is integrated within legal, political, ethical and economic issues, as well as matters of international conventions and human rights (Thorleifsen, 2009). Repatriation can generally be divided into two types, based on the different circumstances of those seeking return: repatriation (from museums/states) to an indigenous community and state-to-state repatriation. In bicultural/multicultural countries that include indigenous communities and settler nations, such as the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, indigenous communities have fought for their rights including the right to cultural identity in the post-colonial world, and thus have requested the repatriation of those sacred objects and ancestral remains that carry spiritual significance (Mihesuah 2000, Hole 2007, Conaty 2008, Cubillo 2010). This kind of repatriation usually happens in settler colonial nation states and refers to the reconstruction of relationships between indigenous groups 1 and museums. The claims of repatriation have also been raised between so-called ‘market nations’ including some former colonisers that acquired rich collections worldwide, like the UK, the United States, Japan and EU countries such as France and Switzerland, and ‘source nations’1 that typically have an illustrious and coveted cultural history such as China, Egypt, Italy and Greece (Dutra, 2004). This kind of repatriation could either refer to cultural property looted by troops during colonial eras, as in the case of France and Egypt or Britain and Nigeria, or to those illicitly exported and stolen or ‘purchased’ through economically exploitive means. In the context of China and Japan, repatriation is an extremely sensitive issue, because it represents not only contested historical problems, but also complicated political relations in the contemporary world, which I will discuss in the next chapter. This thesis mainly focuses on state-to-state repatriation, because of its relevance to the Sino-Japanese situation, but is also inspired by experiences and theories of repatriation to indigenous groups, as a way to acknowledge the hurt over injustices that have occurred. As a country in which material culture has flourished for almost three millennia, China has become one of the countries which has encountered the most serious losses of cultural relics in the world (Tu, 2012). According to UNESCO’s incomplete statistics, approximately 1.64 million