CGTN: Why the Chu Silk Manuscripts should be returned to China

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Sensing he had been duped, Cai could only sign a powerless contract with Cox, valuing the manuscripts at $10,000, with $1,000 paid upfront and the remainder promised if they were not returned from America. Thus began the manuscripts’ near 80-year exile.

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Consensus between Chinese and American scholars
Professor Li Ling of Peking University has spent over four decades tracing the tumultuous journey of this artifact. His exhaustive research has reconstructed a complete chain of evidence, proving that the manuscripts currently housed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art are in fact the Chu Silk Manuscripts from Zidanku.

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Additional letters between Cai and Cox further exposed the deception behind the manuscripts’ removal. In the correspondence, Cai implored Cox to come to Shanghai and demanded the remaining $9,000 payment for the manuscripts, yet to no avail.

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At the International Conference on the Protection and Return of Cultural Objects Removed from Colonial Contexts held in June 2024 in Qingdao, UChicago Professor Donald Harper handed over a crucial piece of evidence: the original lid of the box used by Cox to store the manuscript in 1946. The lid bears original labels and receipt records that align with Li’s timeline of the manuscripts’ storage between 1946 and 1969.

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Harper states, “It should be obvious to museum curators and to cultural authorities and to governments that the Zidanku Silk Manuscripts belong to China, and should be returned to China.”

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A 2018 New York Times article, “How a Chinese Manuscript Written 2,300 Years Ago Ended Up in Washington,” corroborates this conclusion.

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A homecoming deferred
In 1966, American physician and art collector Arthur M. Sackler purchased a portion of the manuscripts and had, in fact, attempted to return it to China on multiple occasions. In 1976, he planned to hand it to Chinese scholar Guo Moruo, but their meeting never took place due to Guo’s illness. In the 1980s, he hoped to donate it to the new Sackler Museum at Peking University, but passed away before the museum opened.

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Following Dr. Sackler’s death in 1987, the manuscript was placed in the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., now part of the National Museum of Asian Art. The museum’s website lists the artifact as an “anonymous gift” with “provenance research underway.” It also references Li Ling’s book, acknowledging the legitimacy of his research.

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From Cai’s contract to his correspondence with Cox, from Li’s documentation of the manuscripts’ journey in America to Sackler’s unfulfilled wishes—all evidence confirms the Chu Silk Manuscripts rightfully belong to China and should be repatriated without delay.

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After nearly eight decades in exile, this national treasure must finally come home.

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For more information, please click:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-04-29/Why-the-Chu-Silk-Manuscripts-should-be-returned-to-China-1CYkLmp3luM/p.html

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