Ming at the museum

British Museum exhibition Ming: 50 Years that Changed China was the largest Chinese cultural heritage show in the museum's history and a successful example of the growing cooperation between museums in China and the United Kingdom. [Photo/Agencies]

Collaborations with Chinese museums, such as Beijing's Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, China Silk Museum in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, are underway.

"Collaborations should not be limited to exhibitions. We can be creative in publications, staff exchange and online resources," Harrison-Hall says.

Some UK museums have taken the first steps in that direction. London-based Victoria and Albert Museum, the world's leading museum in terms of decorative arts and design, launched a project last year to cooperate with Chinese real estate developer China Merchants Group to build a design museum in Shekou district of Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

V&A has restored about 18,000 Chinese cultural relics and has held several big exhibitions of Chinese relics.

"Shenzhen has an established and growing community of designers and it is a center of manufacturing and electronic industry," says Luisa Mengoni, the project head of V&A. "People are talking about how to change 'made-in-China' to 'created-in-China'. This is a chance."

The Shekou Design Museum is scheduled to open in 2017.

"It's beyond a museum. It is about education. We want to have new concepts in the exhibitions there. We expect it to be an incubator of local young designers and connect them with investors," Mengoni explains.