In its last days, the Bush administration reached an agreement with China banning the import of certain Chinese antiquities, which would cover items like the jade figure of a chimera, sold by Doyle New York last November. The move provoked snarls from dealers on the eve of New York’s Asia Week, but the London- and New York-based Chinese art maven Richard Littleton had a market-savvy spin at the ready: "The good stuff in America is going to be worth more than it ever was before — probably not quite what the State Department had in mind!"

"Dragon Them Down?" originally appeared in the March 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's March 2009 Table of Contents.