Taiwan museum willing to loan artifacts for exhibition in China

Taipei - Taiwan's National Palace Museum said Friday it is willing to loan rare Chinese art treasures for exhibition in China, if Beijing guarantees their return to Taipei. Museum director Chou Kung-hsin made the remark while unpacking 37 artifacts on loan from Beijing's Palace Museum for the first joint exhibition between Taiwan and China. The exhibition, on emperor Yongzheng (1678-1735), is held at the Taipei museum from October 7-January 10. When asked when the museum would reciprocate, Chou said 'very soon, at the appropriate time.' However, Chou said Beijing had to sign the Law of Guaranteed Return first, a law promising that the artworks would not be impounded after the exhibition. So far, China has not agreed. 'The Law of Guaranteed Return is a very good cultural law in the world. All important museums in the world ask their governments to sign this law. The Republic of China [Taiwan's formal title] also has signed this law,' she said. With the easeing of cross-strait tension, the NPM and Beijing's Palace Museum, the most important museums of Taiwan and China, launched exchanges in February and discussed joint exhibitions. Beijing regards Taiwan a breakaway province and considers the artworks being stolen from them, many Taiwanese fear that Beijing might confiscate the treasures if they are loaned to China. When the Nationalist government lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949, it took the best artifacts - totaling 650,000 pieces - from the Palace Museum in Beijing and a museum in Nanjing and brought them to Taipei. Since then, these artifacts have been preserved and displayed at the NPM on the outskirts of Taipei, which has become one of Taipei's premier tourist attractions. In 2008, 2.2 million people visited the institution. Since 1949, the NPM has sent some of its artworks abroad a few times, but only after the host countries signed the Law of Guaranteed Return.