China Sweeps Cultural Heritage Sector in Widening Anti-Graft Crackdown

 A high-profile scandal involving the illicit sale of a masterpiece scroll by insiders at one of China’s top museums has prompted Beijing to launch a sweeping nationwide audit of state-owned antiquities, as a widening anti-graft dragnet sweeps through the country's cultural heritage sector.

On April 1, the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA) announced a yearlong, centralized campaign to meticulously inventory state-owned museum holdings and eradicate security vulnerabilities. Following a national teleconference, the agency directed museums to piece-by-piece verify their physical assets against official ledger records, aiming to establish a standardized, institutionalized system for collection management. The initiative will simultaneously act as a pilot for China’s second national census of movable cultural relics.