Taiwan says it's not ready to send artifacts to China for display

Mar 15, 2010, 14:28 GMT

Taipei - The curator of the Palace Museum in Taiwan said Monday that the museum was not ready to send any of its artifacts for exhibition in China unless Beijing agreed to institute a law guaranteeing the objects' return.

'Only when the mainland completes judicial proceedings relating to exemption of seizure and officially addresses us as the National Palace Museum would joint exhibitions be possible on the mainland,' Chou Kung-his said.

Her comment, made during a parliament session in Taipei, came a day after Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao called for the joint exhibition of the painting 'Dwelling in the Fu Chun Mountains' by Huang Kung-wang (1269-1354).

Wen said he hoped the painting, half of which is being kept in Beijing and half in Taiwan, could be displayed in its entirely.

Taiwan and China split at the end of a civil war in 1949, and the defeated Nationalist government brought to Taiwan more than 600,000 artifacts that were once kept at the Palace Museum in Beijing.

Taiwan was concerned that if it loans any of these artifacts to China for exhibition, Beijing could seize the objects under the excuse that they were stolen by the Nationalists.