Taiwan museum to host show with Beijing

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-20 10:24

TAIPEI -- The "National Palace Museum" of Taiwan will host an exhibition in October using 29 sets of cultural relics borrowed from the Palace Museum in Beijing.

The announcement was made by Chou Kung-shin, director of the Taiwan museum, at a press conference at the Taoyuan International Airport on Thursday. Chou had just returned from a week-long tour in the mainland.

The amount of relics being lent by the Beijing museum to the Taiwan museum is "more than the expected figure," Chou said.

The exhibit will be about Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty(1644-1911).

Meanwhile, the Beijing museum also agreed to provide historic documents to Taiwan for copying and publishing. The Taiwan museum will pay one fortieth the normal price, Chou said.

She hailed her first-ever visit to museums in Beijing and Shanghai as a "breakthrough", saying she has seen "boundless possibilities in cooperation" with the mainland museums.

During Chou's meetings with leaders of the Palace Museum in Beijing and the Shanghai Museum, they signed agreements to carry out cooperation in academic research, exhibits, publishing and personnel exchanges.

The two sides agreed to set up a long-term and mutually beneficial mechanism for cooperation and exchanges, according to Chou.

She said the leaders of the two mainland museums are expected to visit the "National Palace Museum" in Taipei in the near future.

Taipei's "National Palace Museum" is known for its rich collection of objects taken from Beijing's former Imperial Palace, or the Forbidden City, in 1949 at the end of a civil war.

The then-Kuomintang regime shipped 2,972 boxes of about 600,000valuable items from Beijing to Taipei.