The Stick and Carrot

In a recent New York Times article by Benjamin Genocchio, an interesting quote appeared on the bottom line. Referring to the recent import restrictions on Chinese cultural property, Dr. Stephen K. Urice, a former archaeologist and now Associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Law, reportedly said: “We got the stick, and now it’s time to see the carrot”. The Stick and Carrot metaphor is insightful in that it reveals a mindset that academic archaeologists often share but couch in other terms in a futile effort to appear subtle. The objective of nationalist archaeologists is to preclude (by any and all means) the distribution of material objects from the past—which to them means diffusion of culture. All of this "cultural property" (and the list is very, very long) belongs, in their view, in the place where it was created. Nevermind that it might have originally been produced for export, and migrated freely aroud the world for centuries. True national treasures aside, the very concept of national retention of cultural property runs against the grain of globalism. Yet, countries that seek the nationalism of what they call cultural property are often the same countries espousing more global assistance in their internal development. The U.S. State Department publicly advocates cultural sharing, yet advocates a restriction on shared "cultural property" of the most mundane and innocuous nature. The dichotomies are extreme and nonsensical.

Dr. Urice obviously considers the levying of import restrictions on Chinese cultural property as a "stick" in the master plan of cultural property nationalists. The "carrot" must, in his view, come from the Chinese. That is, the Chinese government should be enticing its citizens with incentives to hinder the search for objects of antiquity and, when found, to retain them within China. Is there something wrong with this picture? The United States government, perhaps the most active promoter of globalism in history, is using a stick against its own citizens to advance nationalist interests abroad. At the same time, it is asking (respectfully and gently) that the Chinese government TRY to dangle a carrot before its own people. The dichotomies are astounding and the pride with which nationalist archaeologists point to the China MOU as being good for society is literally beyond comprehension.

When the United States prohibits the importation of the very coins that the Chinese government advertises and sells directly to tourists through its Bank of China, there ought to be some sort of awakening to the reality that there is a disconnect. That the State Department imposed import restrictions knowing full well about those coin sales is an abomination. But, no, the U.S. imposed restrictions are applauded by nationalist archaeologists as a good thing. How, might I ask, can the Chinese government provide the carrot when they are officially and happily doing exactly what these archaeolgists would have them discourage among their citizens? When Richard Nixon opened the door to China, he could never have anticipated such a bizarre and incomprehensible situation—least of all with the blessing of the U.S. State Department and the archaeological community, once the largest importer of antiquities in the world.

Copycat Hydra?

In an earlier blog, I referred to the U.S. State Department as the "Hydra of bureaucracy." The Hydra was, in Greek mythology, a multi-headed sub-terranean creature with a poisonous breath. If some adventurous soul managed to cut off one of the heads, two more would spring up in its place. That is, I will be the first to admit, a harsh metaphor to describe government employees serving "the people." In other posts on this blog, I have provided some examples of why I personally feel that service to the people has not always been the primary motivation at DOS, or at least not at the Cultural Heritage Center of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Today, I found online a new State Department "Organization Chart" that I initially presumed was part of the DOS website. The fact that the site had a Blogspot URL did not strike me as odd at first because DOS has widely advertised its new interest in blogging. However, when I clicked on "About Me" it quickly became apparent that this was a copycat and likely a rather creative advertising scheme. In checking all of the posts to date on this private blog, I was able to find nothing but very generic descriptions of the State Department and its functions—nothing controversial or objectionable. But, the thought occurred to me, what if some website creating the impression of an official DOS medium started posting ideological views? Would that not be another head of the same Hydra? Call me paranoid if you like, but in a world where a superpower like China will openly sanction sabotage of a legal auction in another country, I harbor no illusions about the lengths to which ideologues will go in pursuit of their objectives.

Actually, the organization chart posted by this anonymous blogger was enlightening since I have never really looked at the entire DOS structure like this. I don't doubt that it is accurate. A reading of the list of offices within DOS makes it very clear that the structure, as one might expect, is pyramidal and there does seem to be an office for everything imaginable. Beneath the Secretary of State are six Undersecretaries heading a plethora of agencies and functions. One of those Under Secretaries is the "Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs: The senior economic advisor for the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on international economic policy. This position is responsible for bureaus, headed by Assistant Secretaries, dealing with trade, agriculture, aviation, and bilateral trade relations with America's economic partners." These are obviously the people who know about business and trade.

Another Under Secretary is the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs: "This position manages units that handle the department's public communications and seek to burnish the image of the United States around the world." Some might say that these are the "Spin Doctors". Beneath this Under Secretary is the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. I'm not sure how effective that Bureau has been in recent years as Americans are not viewed these days in the most favorable light. Be that as it may, the thing that seems peculiar to me is that the people who know about trade and business are not the people who evaluate requests for trade restrictions on coins. In fact, those people do not even seem to be in the loop. The decision on requests for import restrictions comes under the purview of an agency geared not to trade and business issues, but to enhancing public image overseas. Is it any wonder that the Cultural Heritage Center consistently finds in favor of foreign diplomacy over the interests of domestic trade?

These two divisions, with opposed interests in this case, converge only at the Deputy Secretary position, the number two person at DOS. Consequently, unless an issue is of grave consequence, it is not likely to receive inter-departmental attention. Thus isolated from broad departmental oversight, and traditionally operating under a shroud of secrecy, the Cultural Heritage Center has essentially had a free rein when it came to advocating and implementing its own ideological views. We can probably not expect any change in that situation until a greater and wiser power intervenes. But, hope springs eternal—now that change has arrived in Washington, maybe we will see this stone wall in Foggy Bottom torn down.

"Who do these materials belong to?"

Carol Conover, a Manhattan art dealer specializing in Chinese art, asked this apparently rhetorical but exceedingly apropos question in an interview with Susan Adams of Forbes magazine. There are hundreds of news articles sizzling on the internet about this issue, so I won't go into it in any detail, but the essence is that the Auction firm of Christie's sold two bronze animal heads from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent for some $40 million and the buyer reneged. Why the heads brought this kind of money at all is a mystery to me, but maybe that's why I'm still relatively poor :-) The buyer, one Cai Mingchao, was reportedly trying to be a Chinese patriot by "sabotaging" the auction. He is, according to press reports, an advisor to a Chinese heritage group as well as being a private collector and auctioneer who had earlier bid successfully on a $15 million Buddha in a Sotheby's sale. He apparently wanted to keep the objects from being sold to someone outside of China. Or, perhaps he had another intention that did not suit the Chinese government and was forced to reneg? Or, was he actually acting as an instrument of the Chinese government? Whatever the case, the issue brings up some important questions, which are timely for numismatists. Who owns any of this "stuff" that is highly touted as "cultural heritage" and indeed, whose culture is it that's being preserved?

There has been so much hooplah about private collectors "stealing the past" that one would think the past (read that as artifacts) must be pretty clearly defined in terms of ownership. After all, one can't claim that something has been stolen from them unless they can claim ownership in the first place. That is at least the concept of justice that Americans have always understood as a universal truth. But, is it really universal? Many cultural property laws in force today are based not on any traditional ownership claim, but rather on an idealistic national heritage claim. It is really a misnomer to call any of the objects from antiquity residing in the ground in Turkey or Egypt, for example, cultural heritage. The present day governments of these countries bear no semblance at all politically, ethnically, religiously nor culturally to those that formerly controlled these lands. Let's call a spade a spade. These countries, and others like them, believe they "own" the material that they lay claim to because they won that material by conquest—not because it is their heritage. Yet, they deny previous tenants of the same land any claim to art and artifacts from that region—railing often about all the "looted" objects of the past that reside in museums and private collections elsewhere. Nevermind that the supposed "looting" often took place before their own governments even existed, and often with the full knowledge and cooperation of local authorities. Ironically, Greek and Armenian objects still rest in Turkish museums, while Turkish and Greek objects reside in Egyptian museums. It's nonsensical. Can cultural heritage be defined by political authority or GPS coordinates? The whole notion of cultural heritage as a national phenomenon is highly overstated and extremely esoteric in our age.

Does the Chinese government have a right to the rabbit and rat's heads that they claim were "stolen" from their country? Not in the eyes of a French court that failed to block the Christie's sale. Since the objects left China in 1860, the supposed theft is itself ancient history. The People's Republic of China did not exist when these bronze decorations left the country—how could they possibly claim ownership? Kudos to the French court for standing on law and not bowing to politics. Kudos also to Christie's for standing firm and auctioning the items amidst furious objections from the Chinese government. The Chinese, it seems, were caught between a rock and a hard spot. They could have purchased the pieces for the state, it would have amounted to a tiny fraction of the income from exports to the U.S., but this would have been an admission that the objects were not illicit. They couldn't have it both ways! In my opinion, Christie's should offer the items to the underbidder, but that is a matter between the consignor and the auctioneer under any applicable laws in France.

A related question might be: does the PRC own all of the coins struck prior to AD 970 by Chinese rulers—no matter where those coins are found today? Huge hoards of these coins have been found in Vietnam, deposited centuries ago. Should a Chinese coin of the Tang Dynasty found in Vietnam be restricted from importation into the United States? Common sense says no, the coins found in Vietnam are owned by someone in Vietnam, not by the Chinese. But such coins are indeed restricted by the Memorandum Of Understanding between the U.S. State Department and China because there are no records to show when they left China. The presumption that every Chinese coin lacking an export permit was exported illegally from China is an unreasonable assumption and the requirement for an importer to prove legality is a reversal of the burden of proof that rightfully rests upon the accusing party — the state in this case. The answer to Carol Conover's question "who do these materials belong to" is already imbedded in the legal codes of each nation. Trying to construct an ideological model as a replacement for public law is a recipe for disaster. There are already plenty of laws in every civilized country that deal with ownership and theft. There is no need or justification for replacing law with ideological administrative controls that become in essence a law without checks and balances.