China has launched a campaign demanding the British Museum return all "cultural relics acquired through improper channels" to China. Its supposed star example is a recent pot that the museum bought from the potter who made it.

There are plenty of examples of stolen art that museums should return. But often these conclusions are reached by anachronisticly applying standards for recent times to a world that that didn't have these standards and which these standards did not fit. To decide which standards to judge an old event by calls for careful thought.