Australia returns two Chinese cultural relics to China

The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) handed over in Canberra two Chinese cultural relics dating back to some 1,000 years ago to China's National Cultural Heritage Administration on Wednesday.

The two relics are the head of a military officer statue stolen from the Yongyu Imperial Mausoleum of ancient China's Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and the head of a civil official statue stolen from the Yongchang Imperial Mausoleem of the same dynasty.

According to the NGA, both relics are made of limestone and originated from central China's Henan Province.

The restitution followed a tip-off received by China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, which collaborated with the Ministry of Public Security and local Henan authorities to collect evidence before initiating formal recovery efforts in 2025.

The repatriation was executed within the framework of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, a 2009 bilateral memorandum of understanding on cultural heritage protection, and the NGA's own provenance and due diligence policies established in 2021.

A Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Online Registration Service Zone was launched in south China's Guangdong Province on Tuesday.

It allows Hong Kong and Macao investors to complete business registration across the nine mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area via online service, with no paper documents required.

Investors can now use the platform to register businesses in any of the nine mainland cities, making market entry easier and further aligning business registration rules across Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao.

As of the end of September, Guangdong had 106,000 Hong Kong-funded firms and 15,000 Macao-funded companies on its register. Together, they accounted for 55 percent of the province's companies funded by overseas investors.