An ancient Chinese Buddhist statue from Yungang Grottoes in Shanxi province was exhibited at the Asia Week New York event on March 9, which has drawn much attention across the city.

Auctions of cultural relics overseas have always been a controversial issue in China.

Many historic artifacts were looted during wars and other periods of unrest in China from the late 19th century to early 20th century. The number of items stolen is estimated to be around 10 million, including from museums and private collections, according to the China Cultural Relics Academy.

The State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued a regulation in 2016 to ban domestic auctions of Chinese cultural relics that had been previously looted illegally.

The Buddhist statue on display in New York is estimated to have been stolen from the Yungang Grottoes, one of the three largest major cave complexes in China, sometime between 1922 and 1929, according to Zhao Kunyu, deputy director of the Yungang Grottoes Research Institute.

Zhao has spent four years tracking down over a hundred looted Buddhist statues in countries including Japan, France, Germany and the US.

"It is hard to bring these relics back," he said.

"Museums refuse to return the relics, while sellers and buyers in auctions are often anonymous. Once the deal is made, we can’t even trace the relics," he added.

Nevertheless, some patriotic Chinese collectors have bought the lost relics at auctions and donated them to the Chinese government in the past few years.

"I hope there will be more patriotic actions to bring lost relics back home," said Zhao.