Chasing dragons: the Chinese army takes up art collecting

1 November 2008

Elliot Wilson profiles Poly Group, a company controlled by the Chinese military which uses arms-sales profits to buy back artworks that have been illicitly flogged off abroad

Poly can also turn to two other, hugely powerful arms of the state for funding. The first is the PLA itself. Beijing officially estimates 2007 military spending at $47 billion, yet a recent Pentagon report puts that figure at more like $139 billion, and rising at 20 per cent a year. The other source of support is Sasac, a government body that regulates the country’s largest state-owned firms.

And even culturally inclined arms manufacturers have Christmas wishes. At the top of Poly’s list of must-haves is a $20 million bronze dragon held since 1908 by Belgium’s reclusive Stoclet banking family, and a $10 million bronze ‘spirit tree’ funerary sculpture owned since 1998 by Leon Black, founder of private equity firm Apollo Advisers. According to Chinese tradition, ownership of great bronzes, particularly those from the dynasties of the Chou or Zhou (1100–256 bc) and Northern Song (960–1127 ad), bestows great power on the owner.

Yet this is easier said than done. China’s heritage has long been scattered to the winds. The initial damage was done in the 18th and 19th centuries when China was at its weakest. British, French and Dutch collectors came searching for bargains and departed with many millions of pounds worth of antiques, much of it now in European galleries.

But the greatest damage has been done by China itself, notably in the 1960s at the destructive hands of Mao’s Red Guards. ‘China has astonishing affinity with its early culture, which is why Mao was particularly loathsome in his attempts to wipe out art,’ says Sheaf. What remained was snaffled up by Kang Sheng, a nasty piece of work who was head of Mao’s praetorian guard, Unit 8341. Most of Kang’s loot simply disappeared, either sold abroad to earn foreign currency or stored in underground bunkers believed to lie in the eastern province of Anhui.