Search is on for looted Chinese cultural relics

BEIJING - A senior-level Chinese official has pledged to enhance international cooperation to trace looted Chinese cultural relics, and bring them back home.

"China will never give up the right of taking looted cultural relics back, in line with international treaties," said Zhang Jianhua, an official with the Policies and Regulations Department under the State Administration of Cultural Heritage (SACH). "China has undoubted ownership to its national treasures illegally exported to the outside. Any auction of Chinese cultural relics is immoral and will hurt our people's feelings," he was quoted by Xinhua as saying in Cairo, Egypt on Thursday.

He made the remarks at an international cooperation meeting on tracing and protecting looted cultural relics.