2 February 2015

The palace of shame that makes China angry

By Chris Bowlby
BBC News, Beijing
Tourists at the Old Summer Palace
There is a deep, unhealed historical wound in the UK's relations with China - a
wound that most British people know nothing about, but which causes China great
pain. It stems from the destruction in 1860 of the country's most beautiful pala
ce.
It's been described as China's ground zero - a place that tells a story of cultu
ral destruction that everyone in China knows about, but hardly anyone outside.
The palace's fate is bitterly resented in Chinese minds and constantly resurface
s in Chinese popular films, angry social media debates, and furious rows about i
nternational art sales.
And it has left a controversial legacy in British art collections - royal, milit
ary, private - full of looted objects.
By coincidence, one of the story's central characters is Lord Elgin - son of the
man who removed the so-called "Elgin marbles" from Greece.
But there's a twist - a hidden side to this story - which I've been exploring as
it involved my ancestor, Thomas Bowlby, one of the first British foreign corres
pondents.
Continue reading the main story

Start Quote
Here is what Civilisation has done to Barbarity
Victor Hugo
His torture and death at Chinese hands - and the revenge taken by Britain, destr
oying the old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 - was a moment, says one scholar,
that "changed world history".
These days the site is just ruins - piles of scorched masonry, lakes with overgr
own plants, lawns with a few stones scattered where many buildings once stood. T
he site swarms with Chinese visitors, taken there as part of a government-sponso
red "patriotic education" programme.
As everyone in China is taught, it was once the most beautiful collection of arc
hitecture and art in the country. Its Chinese name was Yuanmingyuan - Garden of
Perfect Brightness - where Chinese emperors had built a huge complex of palaces
and other fine buildings, and filled them with cultural treasures.
A new digital reconstruction by a team at Tsinghua University gives a vivid idea
of what this extraordinary place looked like when, 155 years ago, a joint Briti
sh-French army approached Beijing.
Computer reconstruction of Old Summer Palace
The army was sent towards the end of the Opium Wars to force Chinese imperial ru
lers to open up their country further to Western trade and influence. In command
on the British side was the 8th Earl of Elgin, from one of the most famous fami
lies in British imperial history.

With him was Thomas William Bowlby of The Times. Elgin described Bowlby as "rema
rkably agreeable" and saw him as good for his image back in Britain, "the means
of diffusing sound information on many points". The two men bonded on their jour
ney towards China as cultural tourists, visiting the pyramids in Egypt.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
Listen to Chris Bowlby's Radio 3 documentary, Palace of Shame, on the BBC iPlaye
r
The programme will also be aired on the BBC World Service from 15 February
Once they had arrived in China Bowlby wrote in his newspaper reports and private
diary of his admiration for aspects of Chinese life - its fine buildings and "a
dmirably cultivated gardens".
But cultural admiration was mixed with the harsh reality of a brutal war. He als
o reported a very one-sided military campaign as the Anglo-French force relentle
ssly approached Beijing. The British army's new Armstrong gun, he noted, inflict
ed "perfectly awful wounds" on the Chinese. "It smashes whatever it comes in con
tact with."
Because of this military power, Bowlby was confident that imperial China's ruler
s - "effete and faithless Mandarins", he called them - would "soon be suing for
mercy". Eager to witness the war's end, he set off with a delegation of British
and French officials - as well as escorting Indian army troops - to negotiate wh
at they assumed would be the Chinese surrender.
It was to prove a fatal miscalculation.
Meanwhile, French troops reached Beijing and the Summer Palace, where they began
helping themselves to porcelain, silks and ancient books - or simply destroying
what they found.
A temple in the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, Beijing, China, circa 1860.
A temple in the ruins of the Old Summer Palace, circa 1860
British troops joined in when they arrived shortly afterwards. "Officers and men
seemed to have been seized with temporary insanity," said one witness. "In body
and soul they were absorbed in one pursuit which was plunder, plunder." When Lo
rd Elgin arrived, he initially recorded his horror in his diary. "War is a hatef
ul business. The more one sees of it, the more one detests it."
But loot was an established part of army pay, and Elgin helped organise an aucti
on of the many thousands of works of art and other objects that had been taken.
The army tradition was to share out the spoils, with officers and other ranks ta
king their cut, and some of the cash used to compensate the families of dead or
wounded soldiers.
Thomas Bowlby
Thomas Bowlby's mangled body was returned in a coffin
That might have been the end of the pillaging and destruction. But then news eme
rged that the delegation that had gone to negotiate Chinese surrender had been t
aken prisoner. Some members, including the journalist Bowlby, were tortured and
murdered.
"For three days the men were tied up, and for three days their bandages were soa
ked with water so that they would become tighter and tighter," says historian Ve
ra Schwarcz. "Every time they begged for water their mouths would be filled with
dirt." Eventually several prisoners died, their corpses hardly recognisable.

In response, Lord Elgin ordered the British troops to burn down the entire Summe
r Palace complex.
The destruction, he wrote later, was intended "to mark, by a solemn act of retri
bution, the horror and indignation... with which we were inspired by the perpetr
ation of a great crime".
He was worried about his reputation back in Britain, too. "What would the Times
(newspaper) say of me," he reportedly told a French commander, "if I did not ave
nge its correspondent?"
Burning all the magnificent buildings took several days.
Lord Elgin
Lord Elgin: "There are things that perhaps you might have done differently"
"Whenever I think of beauty and taste, of skill and antiquity while I live, wrot
e James M'Ghee, chaplain to the British forces, "I shall see before my mind's ey
e some scene from those grounds, those palaces, and ever regret the stern but ju
st necessity which laid them in ashes."
I visited the current Lord Elgin, at his ancestral home in Scotland, to ask how
he explained what had happened in 1860. He showed me, from family archives, a pi
cture sketched by a British officer of the return of Bowlby's mangled body in a
coffin to British headquarters.
"There are things that perhaps you might have done differently," he says of his
ancestor. "At the same time you've got to judge what was the feeling - intense f
eeling - at that particular moment."
China rejects such explanations.
Liu Yang
Liu Yang has spent years tracing art from the palace
"This is what they say to justify their actions," says Wang Daocheng, a leading
Chinese scholar of these events. "That's the way they try to maintain the so-cal
led moral high ground."
Soon after the Summer Palace's destruction in 1860, the 8th Earl of Elgin made a
triumphant entry to the centre of Beijing, his procession symbolising British a
nd Western domination - and Chinese humiliation.
For some time afterwards, memory of what happened faded in Chinese minds as the
country went through modernisation, the end of imperial rule, war and communist
takeover. Indeed in the communist-led Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, says his
torian Vera Schwarcz, "some remnants of the Summer Palace were literally slashed
with knives by Red Guards". They hated reminders of the imperial past.
Since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests against communist rule, however, China'
s leadership has tried to reinforce its authority by encouraging patriotic pride
in the country's history - and teaching citizens that only strong government to
day can prevent a repeat of the 19th Century humiliation by outsiders. The ruine
d site of the old Summer Palace offers an ideal place to make this point.
China is also focusing increasingly on all the art that was looted by French and
British forces - and taken to Europe. It was widely traded and still sits in al
l kinds of private and public collections.
A recent film by the martial arts star Jackie Chan has stirred up a sense of res
entment in millions of Chinese minds. He plays a daredevil hero attempting to re

cover from evil Western collectors and museums a set of bronze carved zodiac ani
mal heads - among the most famous items looted from the Summer Palace.
A boy views the ox bronze head of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) at a special exhibiti
on April 28, 2005 in Shenyang of Liaoning Province, China. Four pieces of famous
bronze heads including a tiger, a pig, an ox and a monkey of Qing Dynasty art t
reasure make their debut in Shenyang during the exhibition. They are among the 1
2 Chinese zodiac sculptures which originally placed in the Old Summer Palace in
Beijing. The bronze set were taken out of the country in 1860 by British and Fre
nch archaeologists. In 2000, the Beijing-based Poly Group bought the heads of th
e ox, tiger and monkey for more than RMB 30 million (USD 3.66 million) at an auc
tion and returned them to the Chinese mainland. The pig head returned to China a
fter it was purchased from the United States by Macao magnate Stanley Ho for RMB
6 million (USD 720,000) in 2003.
A man views the pig bronze head of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) at a special exhibi
tion April 28, 2005 in Shenyang of Liaoning Province, China. Four pieces of famo
us bronze heads including a tiger, a pig, an ox and a monkey of Qing Dynasty art
treasure make their debut in Shenyang during the exhibition. They are among the
12 Chinese zodiac sculptures which originally placed in the Old Summer Palace i
n Beijing. The bronze set were taken out of the country in 1860 by British and F
rench archaeologists. In 2000, the Beijing-based Poly Group bought the heads of
the ox, tiger and monkey for more than RMB 30 million (USD 3.66 million) at an a
uction and returned them to the Chinese mainland. The pig head returned to China
after it was purchased from the United States by Macao magnate Stanley Ho for R
MB 6 million (USD 720,000) in 2003.
Seven of the zodiac heads are now held in Chinese museums
The real Chinese loot investigators appear no less determined, even if they don'
t resort to violence.
"We're making a plan to start a series of actions to recover these antiques and
get them back to China," says Niu Xianfeng, general director of the National Tre
asures Fund, affiliated to the Chinese Ministry of Culture.
"China will never give up the right to bring these looted or stolen treasures ba
ck."
Liu Yang, a researcher who has spent 15 years tracking down the artworks, says "
British museums never reply" when he writes to ask what they have. But he has co
llected hundreds of images of looted items on his computer.
He even has pictures of a Pekinese dog, taken by a British soldier from Yuanming
yuan, and given to Queen Victoria. It was the first of its breed to come to Brit
ain - and was named "Looty".
A portrait of Looty is still in the Royal art collection, though later newspaper
reports said the dog was ostracised by other royal dogs because of its "Orienta
l habits and appearance", and had to be moved from Buckingham Palace to Sandring
ham.
A painting of Looty by Friedrich Wilhelm Keyl
Looty, the first Pekinese in the UK (Credit: Royal Collection Trust/ Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II 2014)
The Royal collection has several other items thought to be connected with the Be
ijing Summer Palace, including Chinese imperial sceptres, brass plaques and a ma
hogany screen.
The Wallace Collection in London has magnificent imperial vases from the palace.
British military museums have many items too. At the Royal Engineers' museum in
Kent deputy curator James Scott showed me a beautiful jade ornament brought back

from the 1860 campaign. There are also parts of a Chinese imperial throne acqui
red by the officer Charles Gordon (later famous for his death in Khartoum) - use
d for many decades as part of the furniture in the officers' mess.
Labelling these items is a sensitive matter. "We don't actually mention the word
loot at all. We try to keep the interpretation as neutral as possible," says Sc
ott.
Similar sensitivities are needed by auctioneers, who can make huge profits when
items originally taken from the Summer Palace are re-sold today. Proof of their
origin as part of the Chinese imperial collection - such as inscriptions by made
by the soldiers who looted them - hugely increases their potential value.
Some newly wealthy Chinese have bid for such items. But having to pay for art th
at was stolen - as many Chinese see it - causes increasing resentment.
A picture taken on April 29, 2009 in Paris, shows a Chinese imperial seal, which
will be auctioned off later in the day by French auctioneer Drouot. Curators fr
om Yuanmingyuan, northeast of Beijing, are protesting against this auction, argu
ing the seal came from the looted Beijing Summer Palace and should be sent back
to China.
Chinese museum curators protested when this imperial seal was auctioned in Paris
in 2009, arguing that it had been looted from the Old Summer Palace
And what of the Elgin family? Does today's Lord Elgin think art should be return
ed to China?
"It's a very good arguing point" he concedes. But "the beauty of something is in
herent in it wherever it happens to be".
At the family home, he showed me a magnificent pair of stork sculptures in bronz
e, originally given by the Japanese emperor to his Chinese counterpart, and then
brought back by the 8th Earl of Elgin from Beijing after his China campaign.
"These things happen," he says of the 1860 events. "It's important to go ahead,
rather than look back all the time."
And the British-Chinese relationship is certainly looking to a new future. It wa
s symbolised for Lord Elgin when Chinese workmen arrived at Rosyth naval dockyar
d, very near his home, to install a huge crane, needed to build Britain's new ai
rcraft carriers.
The workmen started helping themselves to Lord Elgin's oilseed rape crop - a Chi
nese delicacy. He objected at first, but then came to see it as a kind of "tit f
or tat".
But the Chinese want a lot more compensation than that for what happened in 1860
.
They realise it will be very difficult, so long after the event, to retrieve wha
t was taken from the Summer Palace, but they are keen, at least, for more open a
cknowledgement by Britain of what was done.
The French, who joined in the looting of the palace, have been more open about t
heir regret. "We call ourselves civilised and them barbarians," wrote the outrag
ed author, Victor Hugo, about the destruction of the Summer Palace. "Here is wha
t Civilisation has done to Barbarity."
Visitors walk in the ruins of the Haiyan Hall at the Old Summer Palace, or Yuanm
ingyuan, in Beijing on October 19, 2010. China has renewed a call for the return
of relics looted from the Old Summer Palace in Beijing 150 years ago -- an act

seen as a cause of national humiliation at the hands of western armies. The Yuan
mingyuan, a summer resort garden for the emperors of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911
), was pillaged by a joint British and French military expedition during the sec
ond Opium War on October 18-19, 1860.
A recent French book, The Sack of the Summer Palace by Bernard Brizay, has been
translated into Chinese and warmly received in China.
In the UK, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on the future - on Chinese investment
and trade - not the past.
Prime Minister David Cameron has spoken of a new "partnership of mutual respect
and understanding" with China and it's against this backdrop that the Duke of Ca
mbridge will soon visit the country. But developing this relationship may one da
y mean engaging with the painful past that China has not forgotten.
Even in China, though, memory is selective.
Some of the 1860 history has already been buried, as I discovered when I went to
look for Thomas Bowlby's grave. Instead of a cemetery, all I found was a golf d
riving range.