clipped from: abcnews.go.com   

Chinese Demand Return of Two Artifacts 'Looted' From Old Summer Palace

YSL Partner Offers China Art for Human Rights

Late French designer Yves Saint Laurent's two bronze sculptures went up for auction at Christie's last week. The highest bidder has been revealed: Cai Mingchao.

But Cai, who bid nearly $40 million by phone last week, has no intention of paying.

Cai is a member of China's Lost Cultural Relics Foundation, a group trying to stop the auction and reclaim the two relics, which were once housed in Beijing's Old Summer Palace.

The Chinese say the bronze rat and rabbit heads were stolen during the second Opium War in 1860 when British and French troops looted and then burned down the imperial palace.

Protests spread to Los Angeles when the American Chinese Collector's Association and the Eastern Cultural Foundation issued an open letter, appealing to Chinese collectors and art dealers to stop doing business with Christie's.