Taiwan is considering sending its ancient Chinese treasures on exhibit in China, but first it is seeking assurances that the artworks will be returned.
The concern surrounding their return is so high that Taiwan, which holds the bulk of the imperial art collection of China after spiriting most of it to the island at the end of the Chinese Civil War, is demanding that China sign a promise called the Law of Guaranteed Return to send the items back to Taiwan at the end of the exhibition.
“Our top principle is the safe return of the artifacts,” Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said earlier this month. “China must sign the Law of Guaranteed Return before we can send the treasures on exhibition in China.”
PHOTO: CNA
Chou Kung-hsin (周功鑫), director of Taipei’s National Palace Museum, flew to Beijing yesterday to discuss cultural exchanges with Beijing’s Palace Museum.
She said she would ask for the loan of 29 artifacts from the Beijing institution for display at an exhibition from October to January in Taipei of artworks from the era of Emperor Yongzheng (雍正,1678-1735) of the Qing Dynasty.
The show was expected to kickstart the holding of joint exhibitions by the two palace museums after China has been eager to hold talks on exhibiting the Taipei artifacts in China.
Ahead of Chou’s departure, the Mainland Affairs Council said on Friday that China must sign the Law of Guaranteed Return with Taiwan on a government-to-government level, not just between the palace museums.
“China has always stated that the treasures in the National Palace Museum in Taipei were stolen from China by the Chinese Nationalists, so we demand that China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, sign the Law of Guaranteed Return,” council spokesman Liu Teh-shun (劉德勳) said.
“China must promise the artifacts will not be impounded and that China does not claim ownership over these artifacts,” Liu said.
When the Chinese 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 National Palace Museum, which has become one of Taipei’s premier tourist attractions. Last year, 2.2 million people visited the institution.
Since 1949, it has sent some of its artworks abroad a few times, but only after their host countries signed the Law of Guaranteed Return.
Taiwan has reason to fear the seizure of the artifacts while they are on overseas exhibition because only 23 countries recognize Taiwan while more than 170 countries recognize China.
China still considers the artifacts at the National Palace Museum as treasures that were looted from China.
Liu Guoshen, a researcher from the Taiwan Research Academy at Xiamen University, dismissed fears that Taiwan’s artifacts might be confiscated by China.
“It is impossible for Beijing to confiscate the exhibits,” he said. “History is the past. The two sides have good relations now. Interaction across the Taiwan Strait is very good. Personally, I don’t think there is any problem for these artifacts to be exhibited in China.”
At this stage, it was still not clear whether China, or Beijing’s Palace Museum, would be willing to sign the Law of Guaranteed Return.
Even if Beijing allows an unofficial agency of the Palace Museum to sign the pact, its legality is questionable.
“The legal effect of a contract signed by two persons or legal entities shall not supersede that of the laws, particularly those concerning the execution of public authority,” said Lee Shih-lo, a legal expert in Taipei.
“Since China does not recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty, even if Beijing signs the Law of Guaranteed Return, there is no guarantee that Beijing will return the treasures to Taipei after their exhibition in China,” he said. “If Taiwan knows the risks involved, it should not send the treasures to China now as the cross-strait relationship is still unstable.”
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi