23,000 bronzes, 14 years, 60 volumes: how China is mapping lost heritage held abroad

In the quiet of a Peking University research room, shelves groan under the weight of 60 thick volumes. Stacked, they stand taller than an average human.Inside their pages lie the details of more than 23,000 ancient Chinese bronze vessels, weapons, chariot fittings and ritual objects that left China’s shores long ago and now sit in museums, private collections and auction houses across nearly 30 countries.Published in April by Shanghai Classics Publishing House, the Collection of Chinese Bronzes in Overseas Collections is the product of a painstaking 14-year investigation. It is also something more: an assembled toolkit for China’s intensifying campaign to reclaim cultural heritage lost to war, looting and smuggling, as well as an assertion of Beijing’s ambition to shape the global rules of repatriation.