Pact on Chinese Treasures Wins Praise.

In its final days, the Bush administration has reached a long-anticipated agreement with China that will ban imports of a wide range of Chinese antiquities into the United States to help stanch the growing illicit traffic in such artifacts. The accord, signed on Wednesday, covers antiquities dating from the Paleolithic period, starting in 75,000 B.C., through the end of the Tang dynasty, in A.D. 907, and all monumental sculpture and wall art at least 250 years old. Yet it is not as broad as the ban China originally proposed in 2004, when it asked the United States to bar imports on a wide range of artifacts from the prehistoric period through the early 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]