New Ways Of Sharing: A Relational Approach To Understanding The Groundwork For Sino-Japanese Repatriation

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.