The Miho has declined to say how much it paid for the Buddhist statue, which dates to the sixth century, but museum and Chinese officials have estimated the value of the limestone carving to be about 100 million yen, or about $830,000.Īs part of the agreement, the Chinese government stated publicly that it believed the Japanese museum had bought the statue in good faith on the open market and had not acted improperly.

The Miho Museum, a major new antiquities museum near Kyoto, Japan, has acknowledged for the first time back in 2001 what many archaeologists have long alleged: that one of its masterpieces, a rare Buddhist statue from China, is one that was stolen from Shandong Province, China, in 1994.Īt a news conference at the museum on Monday, Miho administrators signed an agreement with Chinese cultural officials that returns ownership of the statue, an exquisite 47 1/2-inch stone carving of a standing Buddhist figure, known as a bodhisattva, to the Chinese government without payment. The officially atheist Communist Party of China (CPC) has adopted religion for diplomatic purposes: Buddhism’s central tenets of non-violence, peace and tolerance make it a rich source of potential soft power.

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