A batch of historical artifacts, including a short blade gifted to Whampoa Military Academy graduates when Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) served as the academy’s president, was gifted to Taiwan’s Academia Historica on Thursday by the Chokoku-no-Mori Art Foundation in Japan.
The blade was considered a symbol of honor among the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Revolutionary Army and is regarded as a very precious relic, as Academia Historica did not even have one.
The blade was gifted to the Hakone Open-Air Museum’s founder, the late Shikanai Nobutaka, by former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), as Shikanai had cultivated an excellent personal relationship with the Chiangs.
Photo: Lin Tsuei-yi, Taipei Times
The conferral ceremony was held at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo on Thursday, with Chokoku-no-Mori Art Foundation executive director Eiji Tamaki gifting 24 historical artifacts, which were received by Academia Historica president Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深).
The ceremony was also attended by former Sankei Shimbun president Takamitsu Kumasaka and Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷).
Most of the gifted historical artifacts were previously housed and displayed at the Hakone Open-Air Museum’s Zhongzheng Hall (中正堂) and were gifts made to Shikanai during his visits to Taiwan or by those he met when they visited him in Japan.
The museum intended to return the artifacts last year, marking the 33rd anniversary of Shikanai’s passing, and reached out through former Sankei Shimbun reporter Masumi Kawasaki.
Academia Historica decided to bring back the artifacts despite some of them not meeting the criteria of the President and Vice President Memorabilia Management Act (總統副總統文物管理條例), because the collection represents a period of friendliness between Taiwan and Japan since 1970, Chen said.
The collection also came from Shikanai’s personal collection, who had previously received awards from the Taiwan government, he added.
Academia Historica is also considering holding a special exhibit with this batch of historical artifacts in the future, Chen said.
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