NEW YORK—The collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been given the seal of approval by a Chinese team searching American and European museums for works that were looted from the summer palace of the Chinese emperor in 1860, during what has been termed the country’s “century of humiliation.”

According to the New York Times, a delegation of Chinese art experts has swept through museums in the United States over the past few weeks, questioning curators and requesting documentation to prove that artifacts of Chinese origin were acquired legally. At the Met, the team reportedly probed the provenance of a series of jade pieces but left satisfied.

The legal basis for the nation’s recent treasure hunt is tenuous, legal experts suggest, but that hasn’t stopped the Chinese government from implying that it will use lawsuits, shame, and political pressure to obtain work that it believes was smuggled out of the country by foreigners.

Liu Kang, a Chinese Studies professor at Duke University, emphasized that Westerners need to understand the thinking that underlies the nation’s recent decisions as it begins to wield its newfound power. “China is like an adolescent who took too many steroids,” he says. “It has suddenly become big, but it finds it hard to coordinate and control its body. To the West, it can look like a monster.”

Read more at the New York Times.