This past week, Yves St. Laurent’s art collection was auctioned off, including two fountainheads (for $39 million) that were supposedly looted from the “Old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 when it was sacked and burnt by French and British armies during the Second Opium War.”  China tried to stop the auction last Thursday, but was rejected by the Paris court.

During this quarrel, St. Laurent’s partner, Pierre Berge, insisted that the artifacts were acquired legally. He is also reported to have said he “would agree to give them back – if Beijing gave Tibet its freedom.”

He is quoted in the Telegraph as saying:

“All they have to do is to declare they are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory.

“If they do that, I would be very happy to go myself and bring these two Chinese heads to put them in the Summer Palace in Beijing. It’s obviously blackmail but I accept that.”

Are you kidding me?! I have to agree with Xinhua here in saying that that is an incredibly stupid thing to say. First, you cannot mix two political messages together like that (even though it is oft practiced), especially with blackmail and by using cultural relics as a bargaining chip. Second, what does this guy know about Tibet? If, in the case that China agreed and it got its freedom, how would it run itself? Is it in a state where it can effectively govern its people?

I’m not going to get into it, but I hate when Westerners blindly tout “Tibetan freedom” when they don’t even know what it entails. I’m not saying that the situation isn’t deserving of attention, it just needs to be approached with caution and awareness.

Edit: ChinaSMACK covers Chinese reactions to the auctioning of the relics.