"In the past 70 years of rescue efforts to reclaim lost Chinese cultural relics, Hong Kong and Macao compatriots have always contributed as indispensable strength," Liu Yuzhu, director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said. "Ho is an outstanding representative of that spirit."

In 2003, Ho also donated the pig-head statue of the Old Summer Palace to the mainland. It is also being displayed at the National Museum of China at the same exhibition.

"The broken link of historical memory is thus re-connected," Liu said. "The returns of the relics hold the public's collective emotion. People's cultural confidence can be strengthened. It will also encourage more compatriots' devotion, both at home and abroad, to better preserve cultural heritage of our country."

The horse-head statue is the seventh among the 12 articles from the Old Summer Palace fountain that has returned to Beijing.