Taiwan, China to hold first joint arts exhibition

Oct 6, 2009, 14:56 GMT

Taipei - Taiwan and China will hold their first joint arts exhibition in Taipei Wednesday at Taipei's National Palace Museum, it was announced Tuesday.

To celebrate the launch, the NPM and Beijing's Palace Museum - which lent 37 pieces to the show - held a reception for some 400 guests at which NPM Director Chou Kung-shin and Beijing Palace Museum Director Zheng Xinmiao announced plans for cooperation in 2010.

They include exchange of visits and publications and joint seminars. 'The exhibition on Emperor Yonghzheng is only the start of our cooperation. There is more to do in future,' Zheng said.

The exhibition, which opens Wednesday, is entitled 'Harmony and Integrity: The Yongzheng Emperor and His Times. It explores the life, administration and culture of Yongzheng, who ruled China from 1723- 1735.

The exhibition, which runs until January 10, is expected to lead to Taiwan and China's holding a joint exhibition in China, and China's borrowing artifacts from the NPM.

But as the relics at the NPM were removed from China, the NPM insists that China must sign the Law of Guaranteed Return to guarantee their return to Taiwan.

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.

Beijing regards Taiwan a breakaway province and considers the artworks as stolen from China. Many Taiwanese fear that Beijing might confiscate the treasures if they are loaned to China.

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.