Low Recovery Performance of Cultural Assets Leaked to Japan... Only 24 Cases Since 2015

399 Cases in the US and 44 in Germany Over 5 Years
No Documents Remain to Prove Illegality or Impropriety in Export Process

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Claims have been made that the recovery performance of our cultural assets leaked to Japan is poor.

According to the 'Performance of Overseas Cultural Asset Recovery in the Last 5 Years' data submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 30th to Jeon Hae-cheol, a member of the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, the recovery performance of our cultural assets received from Japan was recorded as 7 cases in 2015, 0 cases in 2016, 1 case in 2017, 14 cases in 2018, and 2 cases in 2019. In contrast, during the same period, a total of 472 cultural assets were recovered from the United States with 399 cases, Germany 44 cases, Japan 24 cases, Switzerland 3 cases, and France 2 cases.

The Overseas Korean Cultural Heritage Foundation has identified that as of April 2020, the number of our cultural assets leaked overseas amounts to 193,136 items across 21 countries. Cultural assets leaked to Japan, including those at the Tokyo National Museum, total 81,889 items, accounting for 42.4% of all leaked cultural assets, followed by the United States with 53,141 items (27.52%), and China with 12,984 items (6.72%).

In particular, Japan holds more than 80,000 identified leaked cultural assets, including the Ogura Collection, which consists of about 1,000 artifacts collected by the businessman Ogura Takenosuke from the Korean Peninsula during the Japanese colonial period. It is also analyzed that there are actually more than 300,000 leaked cultural assets.

The reason for Japan's low cultural asset recovery rate is that there are no documents proving the illegality or impropriety of the export process, and international treaties such as the 1970 UNESCO Convention apply only to stolen cultural assets after their effective date, making it difficult to apply to cultural assets exported during the Japanese colonial period or the Korean War. Japan claims that government-to-government negotiations were concluded through the 1965 Korea-Japan Cultural Property Agreement.

In response, Assemblyman Jeon Hae-cheol emphasized, "Although Japan has the largest number of cultural assets leaked overseas, its recovery performance is relatively poor compared to the United States and others," adding, "The issue of cultural asset return requires verification of local export routes and review of treaties and international law, so efforts and will from not only the Cultural Heritage Administration but also the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are important."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.