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Hands across the water are holding art, artifacts

THE Chinese mainland and Taiwan are stepping up cross-strait art exchanges.

Zheng Xinmiao, Curator of the Beijing Palace Museum, reached agreement yesterday on further cooperation with Taipei Museum, including 27 sets of cultural relics that are expected to be loaned by the museum to Taipei for a special exhibit.

The two sides will hold exchange visits between July and mid-September every year to discuss additional cooperation.

The Beijing Palace Museum will lend Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) relics to the Taipei Museum for an exhibit on Emperor Yong Zheng (1678-1735) as the first exchange. The two parties will also exchange images and videos of the relics.

"It's a solid step for our cooperation," Zheng said at a news conference in Taipei.

The two sides will also exchange personnel for knowledge transfers and research projects for two to three months. The visits will be supported by the Asian Cultural Council.

A two-day academic seminar on Emperor Yong Zheng's life is scheduled to be held in Taipei by the two museums on November 5. The two sides plan to hold more academic seminars in the future.

Zheng and his Taipei counterpart, Chou Kung-shin, both expressed confidence in future cooperation.

Zheng said the Beijing Palace Museum is not demanding that the Taipei Museum immediately return 600,000 items of art taken from the mainland six decades ago by the retreating Kuomintang army in China's civil war.

He said that artifacts in both Beijing and Taipei museums are "China's cultural heritage jointly owned by people across the Taiwan Strait."

"Their (future) will be decided by our compatriots and by history," Zheng said. "For now, we will keep up our exchanges and cooperation."

Zheng said he was given a tour of the artifacts stored in a mountain vault and other items on exhibition at the Taipei Museum after he arrived on Sunday for a four-day visit.

The Beijing Palace Museum agreed last month to loan Qing Dynasty relics to the Taipei Museum when Chou visited Beijing and Shanghai in mid-February.





 

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